52 photographs › At a glance
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Summary
Heliconia vellerigera is a plant species in the family Heliconiaceae, native to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Costa Rica. It is a large herb up to 6 m (20 feet) tall with a pendulous inflorescence of 20-30 red-orange bracts covered with cinnamon-colored hairs.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Heliconia vellerigera", CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the genus · Heliconia
Heliconia is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Heliconiaceae. Most of the 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the western Pacific and Maluku in Indonesia. Many species of Heliconia are found in the tropical forests of these regions. More on Wikipedia ›
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Heliconia", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant, listed under the genus Heliconia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “rhizomatous geophyte”, “wet tropical”.
Seasons
The rain rule reads no short rainy season: 70% of the median year's rain (2,614 mm of 3,616 mm) takes 8 months, March to July and October to December. Mean temperature moves 1.8 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere. The habitat lies within 10° of the equator, where the shift rule does not apply, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.
Rain
3,616 mm in the median year at the habitat, 2,614 mm of it March to July and October to December. Wettest month April at 370 mm, driest month August at 231 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,948 mm to 4,851 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 3,472 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 3,616 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, southern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.
Light
Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 34 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 22, the highest 90th-percentile month 36).
Warmth and air
Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 17.9 °C in July and August (across the grid cells of the range 14.3 °C to 21.0 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 26.4 °C in February and October (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is 17.9 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, July and August, in the median year (CHELSA); a month's mean of its nightly lows is warmer than the nights a floor is read from. The daily extremes were read at a weather cell whose ground is too far above or below the typical spot to correct for, and are not used.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 66 to 70% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.
How this section is made
Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.
Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.
Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.
Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.
Temperature. CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. No cold floor is read without a daily extremes series; the coldest month's mean nightly low named in its sentence is not one. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.
Group. Listed under the genus Heliconia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “rhizomatous geophyte”, “wet tropical”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, southern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 24 °C in Jul to 26 °C in Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Sep, Oct, Nov and Dec; mean nightly low from 18 °C in Jul, Aug and Sep to 20 °C in Feb, Mar and Apr. The cold quarter, Jul to Sep, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low, centred on the 3 months in a row that tie for it. 3,616 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Apr. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 62 habitat cells. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.
Figures by month
| Figure | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 26 / 21–29 | 26 / 21–29 | 26 / 22–29 | 26 / 21–28 | 26 / 21–28 | 25 / 21–27 | 24 / 21–27 | 25 / 21–28 | 26 / 21–28 | 26 / 21–29 | 26 / 21–28 | 26 / 21–28 |
| Night °C | 19 / 15–22 | 20 / 15–22 | 20 / 15–22 | 20 / 15–22 | 19 / 15–22 | 19 / 15–21 | 18 / 14–21 | 18 / 14–21 | 18 / 15–22 | 19 / 15–22 | 19 / 15–22 | 19 / 15–22 |
| Rain mm | 243 / 132–388 | 271 / 145–370 | 317 / 183–407 | 370 / 207–487 | 363 / 170–474 | 353 / 105–497 | 296 / 86–435 | 231 / 82–331 | 257 / 116–350 | 309 / 183–397 | 325 / 176–426 | 281 / 143–445 |
| DLI | 32 / 26–33 | 31 / 26–34 | 30 / 26–33 | 29 / 24–31 | 27 / 24–30 | 25 / 22–28 | 27 / 24–30 | 31 / 25–33 | 34 / 25–36 | 33 / 24–36 | 31 / 23–33 | 31 / 23–32 |
| RH % | 66 / 62–72 | 67 / 62–71 | 68 / 63–72 | 69 / 64–73 | 69 / 65–72 | 68 / 64–74 | 67 / 63–73 | 66 / 61–72 | 66 / 62–72 | 68 / 63–73 | 70 / 64–74 | 68 / 64–73 |
The daily extremes were not used: the correction for elevation, -1687 m, is beyond the 1,000 m either way that a lapse rate is applied over, so the weather cell's ground is other terrain than the typical spot's. So no cold floor is read for this species, and the coldest month's mean nightly low is not taken as one. What that cell gave, so corrected, over 44 years: absolute minimum 13.5 °C, 1st-percentile night 17.0 °C.
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: author not stated, no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) Maurice Raymond, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Dr. Alexey Yakovlev, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Anders Hastings, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Heliconia orthotricha Heliconiaceae Photo: CC0, Zoltán Stekkelpak
Monolena primuliflora Melastomataceae Photo: CC BY, Thomaz de Carvalho Callado Pearcea abunda Gesneriaceae 
Ilex guayusa Guayusa Photo: CC BY, Alan Rockefeller
Columnea orientandina Gesneriaceae Photo: CC BY, Line Juul NielsenOther Heliconia 63 in the reference
Heliconia acuminata False Bird-of-paradise Photo: CC BY, Cody Hinchliff
Heliconia aemygdiana Heliconiaceae Photo: CC BY, Alan Rockefeller
Heliconia angusta Christmas Heliconia Photo: CC0, author not stated Heliconia atratensis Heliconiaceae 
Heliconia aurantiaca Heliconiaceae Photo: CC0, author not stated
Heliconia bihai Macaw-flower Photo: CC0, author not stated
Heliconia bourgaeana Heliconiaceae Photo: CC0, author not stated
Heliconia burleana Heliconiaceae Photo: CC BY, Daniel Mesa
Heliconia caribaea Lobsterclaw Photo: CC BY, Guillaume Delaitre
Heliconia chartacea Pink flamingo heliconia Photo: CC BY, Aidan
Heliconia collinsiana Heliconiaceae Photo: CC BY, Nico Carl
Heliconia curtispatha Heliconiaceae Photo: CC BY, nuthatchnicole all 64 ›Names & registers
Also known as Bihai vellerigera. (GBIF Backbone)
The record
Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →
Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 21 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (5 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 16 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -1.00_-78.125, lapse-corrected -1687 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: the correction for elevation, -1687 m, is beyond the 1,000 m either way that a lapse rate is applied over, so the weather cell's ground is other terrain than the typical spot's, so no cold floor is shownwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22inat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 13 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.