12 photographs › At a glance
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May, shaded
- Jun, shaded
- Jul, shaded
- Aug, shaded
- Sep, shaded
- Oct, shaded
- Nov, shaded
- Dec
Summary
Huntleya burtii, also known as the cat-face orchid, is a species of orchid that occurs in Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Costa Rica. It has beautiful fan-shaped growth and bears single, large, glossy flowers on 6" spikes. The long-lived, fragrant blooms may reach 5" across and are red-brown with yellow spotting toward the top, fading to white spotting toward the bottom. These plants usually grow at elevations of 900–3,600 feet and prefer warm, moderately bright environments.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Huntleya burtii", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Seasons
The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the median year's rain (2,839 mm of 3,894 mm) falls in May to November. The temperature curve is flat, 1.6 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere. The temperature curve moves under 4 °C between the warmest and coldest month, where the shift rule does not apply, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.
Rain
3,894 mm in the median year at the habitat, 2,839 mm of it May to November. Wettest month October at 468 mm, driest month March at 167 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 2,819 mm to 4,528 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 3,929 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 3,894 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.
Light
Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 36 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 20, the highest 90th-percentile month 39).
Warmth and air
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 16.4 °C, the absolute minimum 14.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.9 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 18.2 °C in January and February (across the grid cells of the range 14.2 °C to 20.1 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 26.5 °C in April (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 16.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).
Relative humidity at the habitat: 67 to 74% 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. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected +289 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 24 °C in Dec to 27 °C in Apr; mean nightly low from 18 °C in Jan, Feb, Mar and Dec to 20 °C in May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep and Oct. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low, centred on the 4 months in a row that tie for it. 3,894 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 37 habitat cells. Over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER) the absolute minimum was 14.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 34.9 °C; neither is dated to a month. 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 | 25 / 23–26 | 25 / 23–27 | 26 / 24–28 | 27 / 23–29 | 26 / 23–28 | 26 / 22–28 | 25 / 22–27 | 25 / 22–28 | 26 / 22–28 | 25 / 22–27 | 25 / 22–26 | 24 / 22–26 |
| Night °C | 18 / 14–20 | 18 / 14–20 | 18 / 15–21 | 19 / 15–21 | 20 / 16–22 | 20 / 15–22 | 20 / 15–22 | 20 / 15–22 | 20 / 15–22 | 20 / 15–22 | 19 / 15–22 | 18 / 15–21 |
| Rain mm | 225 / 94–337 | 183 / 62–234 | 167 / 63–289 | 182 / 85–428 | 359 / 302–467 | 413 / 289–450 | 396 / 266–461 | 425 / 258–483 | 407 / 231–510 | 468 / 275–553 | 371 / 240–463 | 298 / 159–433 |
| DLI | 30 / 26–33 | 33 / 30–36 | 36 / 31–39 | 36 / 29–39 | 29 / 24–32 | 27 / 22–30 | 27 / 20–32 | 29 / 22–33 | 29 / 24–34 | 26 / 22–32 | 24 / 20–30 | 26 / 22–31 |
| RH % | 68 / 65–76 | 67 / 63–74 | 67 / 63–72 | 67 / 63–73 | 72 / 68–76 | 73 / 67–78 | 72 / 66–79 | 72 / 64–78 | 73 / 65–77 | 74 / 67–78 | 73 / 69–78 | 70 / 67–77 |
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Yannick Pochon, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Kai Squires, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) snail_hiker, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) bungelina, some rights reserved (CC BY).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Sobralia chrysostoma Golden-Lipped Sobralia Photo: CC BY, Sean Krieg
Scutellaria costaricana Costa Rican skullcap Photo: CC BY-SA, Yu
Trichodrymonia lineata Gesneriaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, SINAC Pérez Greivin
Sobralia atropubescens Orchidaceae Photo: CC BY, Frank Dietze
Goeppertia leucostachys Marantaceae Photo: CC BY, Eduardo Chacón Madrigal
Passiflora oerstedii Passifloraceae Photo: CC BY, Elías Torres ArroyoOther Huntleya 2 in the reference
Huntleya meleagris Orchidaceae Photo: CC BY, Celso Henrique Varela Rios
Huntleya wallisii Ariana’s Beauty Photo: CC BY, Josh Noseworthy Names & registers
Also known as Batemannia burtii; Huntleya burtii var. wallisii; Zygopetalum burtii. (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; 4 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (1 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 3 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 10.50_-85.000, lapse-corrected +289 m at 6.5 °C/kmwikidata 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 2026-10-22none of the photographs on this page is credited to GBIF: those shown are other sources', and GBIF's were the same photographs or were set aside by the photograph rulescommons 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 11 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.