20 photographs › At a glance
- Jan, shaded
- Feb, shaded
- Mar, shaded
- Apr
- May
- Jun, under 5 mm of rain
- Jul, under 5 mm of rain
- Aug, under 5 mm of rain
- Sep, under 5 mm of rain
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec, shaded
Summary
Iris haynei, the Gilboa iris or Faqqu'a iris (Hebrew: אירוס הגלובע, romanized: Irous HaGilboa; Arabic: سوسن فقوعة, romanized: Sawsan Faqquʽa), is a plant species in the genus Iris, subgenus Iris and section Oncocyclus. It is a rhizomatous perennial, from the shrublands and mountainsides mostly in Israel and Palestine, on the Mount Gilboa. The Iris haynei is considered to be the national flower of Palestine. It has smooth, linear or lanceolate, greyish-green leaves and a long slender stem and, between March and April, large fragrant flowers in shades of deep purple, violet, purple, brownish purple or dusky lilac veining or speckling over a pale ground. More on Wikipedia ›
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Iris haynei", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex, listed under the genus Iris in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “rhizomatous geophyte”.
Seasons
The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (404 mm of 520 mm) falls in December to March, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 12.9 °C against a yearly mean of 19.9 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: June to September.
Rain
520 mm in the median year at the habitat, 404 mm of it December to March. Wettest month January at 128 mm, driest months (3 at 1 mm); 4 months under 5 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 447 mm to 589 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 522 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 520 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: 18 to 50 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 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 51).
Warmth and air
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 1.1 °C, the absolute minimum -3.5 °C, 63 frost nights in 44 years, 1.4 a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 43.5 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 6.4 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range 5.4 °C to 7.7 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 34.4 °C in August (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 1.1 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).
Relative humidity at the habitat: 53 to 57% 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 -58 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.
Group. Listed under the genus Iris in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “rhizomatous geophyte”. 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, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 16 °C in Jan to 34 °C in Jul and Aug; mean nightly low from 6 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low. 520 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Jan. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 15 habitat cells. Over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER) the absolute minimum was -3.5 °C and the 99th-percentile day 43.5 °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 | 16 / 15–17 | 17 / 16–18 | 20 / 19–21 | 25 / 24–26 | 30 / 29–31 | 32 / 32–34 | 34 / 34–35 | 34 / 34–36 | 33 / 32–34 | 29 / 28–30 | 23 / 22–24 | 18 / 17–19 |
| Night °C | 6 / 5–8 | 7 / 6–8 | 9 / 8–10 | 12 / 11–13 | 15 / 15–17 | 19 / 18–19 | 21 / 20–22 | 22 / 21–22 | 20 / 19–21 | 17 / 17–19 | 12 / 11–13 | 8 / 7–9 |
| Rain mm | 128 / 109–142 | 109 / 98–127 | 66 / 59–78 | 20 / 16–24 | 6 / 5–8 | 1 / 1–2 | 1 / 0–1 | 1 / 0–1 | 2 / 1–2 | 19 / 15–21 | 66 / 53–72 | 101 / 85–112 |
| DLI | 19 / 18–20 | 24 / 23–25 | 32 / 31–33 | 41 / 40–41 | 47 / 47–48 | 50 / 50–51 | 49 / 48–49 | 45 / 45–46 | 38 / 37–39 | 29 / 28–30 | 22 / 21–23 | 18 / 16–18 |
| RH % | 57 / 56–58 | 57 / 56–58 | 56 / 54–56 | 53 / 51–54 | 53 / 50–54 | 55 / 51–56 | 56 / 53–58 | 57 / 54–60 | 56 / 53–59 | 54 / 52–57 | 53 / 51–54 | 56 / 54–57 |
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: author not stated, no rights reserved · CC0 (4); (c) Mitch Van Dyke, 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.
Colchicum palaestinum Colchicaceae Photo: CC BY, Dietmar K. L. Moser
Biarum pyrami Araceae Photo: CC BY, yelena_antipova
Allium ascalonicum Wild onion Photo: CC BY, Nachman bones
Salvia dominica Lamiaceae Photo: CC BY, yelena_antipova
Prosopis farcta Syrian mesquite Photo: CC0, author not stated
Allium schubertii Amaryllidaceae Photo: CC BY, yelena_antipovaOther Iris 182 in the reference
Iris acutiloba Iridaceae Photo: CC0, author not stated Iris aitchisonii Iridaceae 
Iris alberti Iridaceae Photo: CC BY, Islam Galymzhanov Iris albomarginata Iridaceae 
Iris alexeenkoi Iridaceae Photo: CC BY, info.botdb.ru
Iris aphylla Stool iris Photo: CC BY, Мирослав Соболев
Iris arenaria Iridaceae Photo: CC BY, Oleksii Vasyliuk
Iris atropurpurea Coastal Iris Photo: CC BY, Nachman bones
Iris aucheri Aucher-Eloy Iris Photo: CC BY-SA, Anas A. Emad Iris baldshuanica Iridaceae 
Iris barbatula Iridaceae Photo: CC BY, Morten Ross
Iris barnumiae Iridaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Mehrad Rousta all 183 ›Names & registers
Also known as Iris biggeri. (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; 1 record within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (1 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 32.50_35.625, lapse-corrected -58 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 5 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.