Species
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Lampranthus spectabilis (Haw.) N.E.Br.

Spectacular Brightfig, trailing iceplant

Climate known 88 photographs Cactus or succulent
Add one to my plants Sow seed

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

Lampranthus spectabilis, the trailing iceplant, is a species of flowering plant in the family Aizoaceae, native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa. The unimproved species and a number of cultivars are commercially available, including 'Tresco Apricot', 'Tresco Brilliant', 'Tresco Fire', 'Tresco Orange', 'Tresco Peach', 'Tresco Pearl', 'Tresco Purple', and 'Tresco Red'.

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

About the genus · Lampranthus

Lampranthus is a genus of succulent plants in the family Aizoaceae, which are native to Namibia and the Cape Provinces of South Africa in southern Africa.

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

Family
Aizoaceae
Described by
(Haw.) N.E.Br.
Native to
Cape Provinces
Wild records
110 in range· 33 open

At a glance

Warmest month
26°C
Feb, mean day; nights 18 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
627mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 73 mm (CHELSA)
Light
17–45DLI
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 cactus or succulent by Aizoaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (February and April to October in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 627 mm a year, wettest October at 73 mm, driest July at 32 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 45 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 6.8 °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 Lampranthus spectabilis subsp. spectabilis; Mesembryanthemum spectabile Haw.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by Aizoaceae, which is usually but not always 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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (February and April to October in the northern hemisphere).

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

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (482 mm of 627 mm) takes 8 months, October to April and August. Mean temperature moves 7.6 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: February and April to October.

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 627 mm a year, wettest October at 73 mm, driest July at 32 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

627 mm a year at the habitat, 482 mm of it October to April and August. Wettest month October at 73 mm, driest July at 32 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 473 mm to 906 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 45 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 45 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 17, the highest 90th-percentile month 48).

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 6.8 °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 6.8 °C, the absolute minimum 4.4 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 9.6 °C in July (across the envelope cells 6.4 °C to 13.0 °C), warmest day 25.7 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 6.8 °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: 54 to 63% 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

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 20 °C in Jul to 26 °C in Feb; mean night from 10 °C in Jul to 18 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 627 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 76 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 4.4 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.4 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°20°30°40°36.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)4.4° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100mm rainDLI 17–45RH 54–63 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 76 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
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C25 / 23–2926 / 23–2925 / 22–2723 / 21–2522 / 19–2320 / 18–2120 / 17–2120 / 17–2121 / 18–2321 / 19–2423 / 20–2624 / 22–27
Night °C17 / 15–1918 / 16–1917 / 14–1815 / 12–1713 / 10–1510 / 7–1410 / 6–1310 / 7–1311 / 9–1413 / 10–1514 / 12–1616 / 14–18
Rain mm56 / 42–7350 / 39–6965 / 51–8353 / 40–8033 / 24–6434 / 23–5932 / 24–5853 / 36–8346 / 28–6773 / 51–9972 / 53–9360 / 43–82
DLI44 / 40–4739 / 36–4233 / 31–3526 / 25–2620 / 20–2117 / 17–1919 / 18–2024 / 23–2530 / 30–3136 / 34–3842 / 39–4545 / 41–48
RH %62 / 58–6463 / 59–6563 / 59–6561 / 58–6357 / 54–5954 / 52–5654 / 51–5657 / 54–5959 / 56–6161 / 58–6261 / 58–6362 / 58–64

Each figure is the median across the 76 grid cells holding the 108 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 2464:4144 (-33.225, 27.225). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 4.4 °C, 1st-percentile night 6.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.4 °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 76 distinct grid cells holding the 108 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2464:4144 (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 -33.00_27.500, lapse-corrected -140 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 170 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· introduced: Great Britain
Kew's description“succulent subshrub” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-33.434, 25.972 · in the densest population, 77 records (70% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 110 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 33 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 19 km away. 95 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 2 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 110 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Lampranthus spectabilisLampranthus spectabilisLampranthus spectabilisLampranthus spectabilisLampranthus spectabilisLampranthus spectabilisLampranthus spectabilisLampranthus spectabilis

Photographs: (c) Eduardo Chacón Madrigal, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Thomas Mesaglio, some rights reserved (CC BY) (6).

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 Lampranthus spectabilis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Evaluation of Growth and Green Coverage of Ten Ornamental Species for Planting as Urban Rooftop Greening
Takahiro Sendo, Michio Kanechi, Yuichi Uno, Noboru Inagaki (2010) · Journal of the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science
Plant Growth on a Mediterranean Green Roof: A Pilot Study on Influence of Substrate Depth, Substrate Composition, and Type of Green Roof
Christina Marouli, Pinelopi Savvidou, Maria Koutsokali, Paraskevi Papadopoulou (2022) · Frontiers in Sustainable Cities
Phytoconstituents from the aerial parts of Lampranthus spectabilis
Mamdouh Nabil Samy, Hany Ezzat Khalil, Sachiko Sugimoto, Hideaki Otsuka (2018) · South African Journal of Botany
Pythium aphanidermatum Causing Pythium Rot on Lampranthus spectabilis in Korea
Mi‐Jeong Park, Kyung‐Sook Han, Jin‐Won Kim, Ji‐Hyun Park (2015) · Journal of Phytopathology
Total Phenol, Antioxidant and Allelopathy Assay, and Meiosis Study of Lampranthus spectabilis and Aptenia cordifolia
B Delnavaz Hashemloian, Azra Ataei Azimi, Reza REZAKANLOU (2019) · Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici Cluj-Napoca
Utility of Hydrophilic Polymer for Green Technology Development in Green Roofs Using Rainwater
Jin-Hee Ju, Ji Yang, Yong-Han Yoon (2012) · Journal of Environmental Science International
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 37 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.