Lachenalia orchioides, Platkloof Trail Greyton, 7233, South Africa

no rights reserved · observed growing wild · 2023-10-05

Lachenalia orchioides (L.) Aiton

Orchid Viooltjie, Wild Viooltjie

Climate known 59 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Lachenalia orchioides, the orchid‑like Cape cowslip, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Lachenalia, native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Text from Wikipedia, “Lachenalia orchioides”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Lachenalia

Lachenalia is a genus of bulbous perennial plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae, which are usually found in Namibia and South Africa. Most of them have a dormancy period, but new roots will always grow every year.

Text from Wikipedia, “Lachenalia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Asparagaceae

Described by

(L.) Aiton

Native to

Cape Provinces

Wild records

684 in range· 149 open

At a glance

Warmest month

27°C

Feb, mean day; nights 16 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

596mm/yr

11 wet months · peak Jul 87 mm (CHELSA)

Light

17–51DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Lachenalia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a winter growing season, October to April in the northern hemisphere (April to October at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 596 mm a year, wettest July at 87 mm, driest February at 24 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 51 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 2.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Dipcadoides maculata Medik.; Hyacinthus orchioides L.; Lachenalia orchioides (L.) Sol.; Lachenalia pallida var. caerulescens Lindl.; Muscari orchioides (L.) Mill. and 3 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Lachenalia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a winter growing season, October to April in the northern hemisphere (April to October at the habitat, southern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (445 mm of 596 mm) falls in April to October, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 13.7 °C against a yearly mean of 16.3 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: October to April.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: 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 gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 596 mm a year, wettest July at 87 mm, driest February at 24 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

596 mm a year at the habitat, 445 mm of it April to October. Wettest month July at 87 mm, driest February at 24 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 409 mm to 1772 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 51 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 51 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 15, the highest 90th-percentile month 56).

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.

Warmth and air Cold floor 2.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 2.9 °C, the absolute minimum 0.1 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 40.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 6.2 °C in July (across the envelope cells 3.4 °C to 10.0 °C), warmest day 27.0 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 2.9 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 59% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 269 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale

Figures by month

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	27 / 23–30	27 / 24–30	25 / 23–28	22 / 20–24	19 / 17–21	16 / 14–18	16 / 13–18	16 / 14–18	18 / 16–20	21 / 19–23	23 / 20–26	25 / 22–28
Night °C	16 / 13–17	16 / 14–18	15 / 13–17	13 / 10–15	10 / 7–13	7 / 4–11	6 / 3–10	7 / 4–10	9 / 5–11	11 / 7–13	13 / 10–15	15 / 12–16
Rain mm	27 / 15–57	24 / 12–45	34 / 22–62	61 / 38–130	62 / 37–227	79 / 34–288	87 / 40–286	64 / 43–238	46 / 28–175	46 / 27–115	36 / 22–89	30 / 18–72
DLI	51 / 47–56	46 / 41–50	37 / 33–41	27 / 25–30	20 / 18–22	17 / 15–18	18 / 17–20	23 / 22–25	31 / 29–33	40 / 37–44	48 / 44–52	51 / 47–55
RH %	57 / 50–61	57 / 49–62	58 / 50–62	58 / 52–62	58 / 53–62	58 / 54–61	58 / 54–61	59 / 55–61	59 / 54–62	58 / 52–61	57 / 51–61	57 / 51–61

Each figure is the median across the 269 grid cells holding the 667 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2477:3997 (-33.875, 19.875). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 0.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 2.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 40.7 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 269 distinct grid cells holding the 667 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2477:3997 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -34.00_20.000, lapse-corrected -164 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 197 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.

Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.

NativeCape Provinces

Kew's description“bulbous geophyte” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-33.907, 19.157 · in the densest population, 641 records (94% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 684 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 149 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 8 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 17 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 684 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Tony Rebelo, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (3); (c) Matthew Fainman, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) sharndreheuvel, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Lachenalia orchioides, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

New taxa and nomenclatural changes in Lachenalia (Liliaceae — Hyacinthaceae) from the Cape Province

Winsome F Barker (1989) · South African Journal of Botany

Occurrence Download

GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Occurrence Download

GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Lachenalia orchioides (L.) Aiton