Species
+

Lilium martagon L.

Martagon Lily, Turk's-cap, Turk's-cap lily, Turkowska lilija

Climate known 63 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex
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

Lilium martagon, the martagon lily or Turk's cap lily, is a Eurasian species of lily. It has a widespread native region extending from Portugal east through Europe and Asia as far east as Mongolia.

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

About the genus · Lilium

Lilium is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs, all with large and often prominent flowers. Lilies are a group of flowering plants which are important in culture and literature in much of the world. Most species are native to the Northern Hemisphere and their range is temperate climates and extends into the subtropics. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Lilium”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Liliaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany +33
Wild records
672 in range· 143 open

At a glance

Warmest month
23°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
886mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 95 mm (CHELSA)
Light
6–35DLI
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 Liliaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 886 mm a year, wettest June at 95 mm, driest February at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 6 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -15.5 °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 Lilium martagon subsp. caucasicum Miscz. ex Grossh.; Lilium martagon subsp. sooianum Priszter; Lilium martagon var. pubescens DC.; Lilium versicolor Salisb.; Lilium verticillatum Dulac, 1867.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by Liliaceae, 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 (May to December 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 (655 mm of 886 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 19.8 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to June.

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 886 mm a year, wettest June at 95 mm, driest February at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

886 mm a year at the habitat, 655 mm of it May to December. Wettest month June at 95 mm, driest February at 50 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 592 mm to 1588 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern 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: 6 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 6 to 35 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 4, the highest 90th-percentile month 40).

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 -15.5 °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 -15.5 °C, the absolute minimum -28.3 °C, about 127 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 33.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -4.7 °C in January (across the envelope cells -10.1 °C to -2.1 °C), warmest day 22.7 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -15.5 °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: 59 to 67% 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 2 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul; mean night from -5 °C in Jan to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 886 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 493 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -28.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 33.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-20°20°40°frost33.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-28.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 6–35RH 59–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 493 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 °C2 / -2–54 / -1–68 / 3–1013 / 8–1417 / 14–1920 / 17–2323 / 19–2522 / 19–2518 / 15–2013 / 10–157 / 3–93 / -1–5
Night °C-5 / -10–-2-4 / -10–-2-1 / -6–13 / -2–58 / 4–1011 / 8–1314 / 10–1513 / 10–1510 / 6–115 / 2–71 / -5–2-3 / -9–-1
Rain mm56 / 30–10850 / 29–9462 / 35–11963 / 36–11690 / 61–14795 / 63–16694 / 65–17886 / 62–17278 / 53–14873 / 39–13970 / 40–12869 / 38–126
DLI8 / 5–1113 / 10–1721 / 18–2629 / 27–3334 / 32–3735 / 33–3935 / 33–4030 / 28–3522 / 19–2614 / 12–188 / 6–126 / 4–9
RH %65 / 60–7063 / 59–6761 / 58–6359 / 56–6159 / 56–6259 / 57–6359 / 56–6260 / 57–6362 / 59–6464 / 61–6666 / 62–6967 / 61–70

Each figure is the median across the 493 grid cells holding the 645 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 815:3933 (49.225, 16.675). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -28.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -15.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 33.5 °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 493 distinct grid cells holding the 645 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 815:3933 (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 49.00_16.875, lapse-corrected +65 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 309 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.
NativeAustria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Switzerland, Corse, France, Portugal, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Turkey-in-Europe, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Central European Russia, East European Russia, South European Russia, Ukraine, Altay, Buryatiya, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Kazakhstan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Turkey, Xinjiang, Mongolia· introduced: Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, North European Russia, Québec
Kew's description“bulbous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker47.78, 13.099 · in the densest population, 419 records (62% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 672 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 143 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 353 km away. 113 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 27 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 inside the densest 4° block of the 672 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Lilium martagonLilium martagonLilium martagonLilium martagonLilium martagonLilium martagonLilium martagonLilium martagon

Photographs: (c) Alexander Dubynin, some rights reserved (CC BY) (8).

Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media 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 Lilium martagon, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Revision der Befruchtungsvorgange bei Lilium martagon und Fritilla tenella
S. Nawaschin (1898) · Medical Entomology and Zoology
Circum-Mediterranean cultural heritage and medicinal plant uses in traditional animal healthcare: a field survey in eight selected areas within the RUBIA project
Andréa Pieroni, Maria Elena Giusti, C. de Pasquale, Cinzia Lenzarini (2006) · Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Diesel exhaust particles and allergenicity of pollen grains of Lilium martagon
Abdolkarim Chehregani Rad, Fatemeh Kouhkan (2007) · Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety
A pyrroline glucoside ester and steroidal saponins from Lilium martagon
Tadaaki Satou, Yoshihiro Mimaki, Minpei Kuroda, Yutaka Sashida (1996) · Phytochemistry
Morphogenesis of Lilium martagon L. explants in callus culture
Magdalena Ke, A. Bach (2005) · Acta Biologica Cracoviensia s Botanica
The Effects of Some Hormone Applications on Lilium martagon L. Germination and Morpholgical Characters
Kerim Güney, Mehmet Çetin, Kudret Betül Güney, Abdullah Melekoğlu (2017) · Polish Journal of Environmental Studies
The Formation of the Sexual Nuclei in Lilium Martagon
Ethel Sargant (1896) · Annals of Botany
Double Fertilization in Compositae
W. J. G. Land (1900) · Botanical Gazette

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.

Other Lilium 5 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answercarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; 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 10 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.