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Lilium nepalense; photograph (c) Sagnik Dutta Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY) CC BY(c) Sagnik Dutta Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2022-07-05

Lilium nepalense D.Don

Nepal lily

Liliaceae · China South-Central, Tibet +5 · listed by its family as a bulb, tuber or caudex

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Lilium nepalense, photograph (c) Sagnik Dutta Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY)Lilium nepalense, photograph (c) Sagnik Dutta Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY)Lilium nepalense, photograph (c) Sagnik Dutta Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY)Lilium nepalense, photograph (c) Sagnik Dutta Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY)Lilium nepalense, photograph (c) Sagnik Dutta Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY)Lilium nepalense, photograph Denis Barthel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons 15 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Coldest month, mean nightly low
-9.4°C
Jan at the habitat, not a floor; extremes not used (the weather cell's ground is too far off) CHELSA
Warmest month, mean daily high
16°C
Jul and Aug at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
1,739mm
10 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
25–45DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Wet summers: the rain comes June to September, read as a summer growing season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Lilium nepalense, the lily of Nepal, is an Asian plant species in the lily family. It is native to the Himalayas and nearby regions: northern Thailand, northern Myanmar, Assam, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Uttarakhand, Tibet, and Yunnan. It can be found growing on wet forest borders at 1,200 to 3,000 m (3,900 to 9,800 ft).

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Lilium nepalense", CC BY-SA 4.0.

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 ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Lilium", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex, listed under the family Liliaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “bulbous geophyte”.

Seasons

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (1,242 mm of 1,662 mm) falls in June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 12.5 °C against a yearly mean of 5.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to March.

Rain

1,662 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,242 mm of it June to September. Wettest month July at 396 mm, driest month November at 17 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,255 mm to 2,438 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 1,739 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 1,662 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: 25 to 45 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 49).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low -9.4 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -17.1 °C to 2.0 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 16.1 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is -9.4 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, January, in the median year (CHELSA); a month's mean of its nightly lows is warmer than the nights a floor is read from. The daily extremes were read at a weather cell whose ground is too far above or below the typical spot to correct for, and are not used.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 54 to 75% 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. CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. No cold floor is read without a daily extremes series; the coldest month's mean nightly low named in its sentence is not one. 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 family Liliaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “bulbous 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

Habitat climate of Lilium nepalense through the yearWarmest months July and August, mean daily high 16 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low -9.4 °C; 1,662 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.-20°-10°0°10°20°30°frost°C · day and nightcold quarter0200400600800mm rainDLI 25–45RH 54–75%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 18 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C2 / -7–123 / -7–146 / -4–189 / 0–2212 / 4–2215 / 8–2216 / 10–2116 / 10–2115 / 7–2111 / 3–198 / -1–165 / -4–13
Night °C-9 / -17–2-9 / -17–3-5 / -14–6-2 / -10–102 / -5–137 / 1–159 / 4–169 / 4–167 / 1–152 / -6–11-3 / -11–7-6 / -14–4
Rain mm26 / 19–4742 / 25–6365 / 35–9575 / 51–95108 / 77–176235 / 167–344396 / 288–643382 / 252–610229 / 169–37769 / 49–9917 / 9–2318 / 10–27
DLI27 / 22–3532 / 27–4040 / 35–4645 / 37–4943 / 36–4735 / 31–3928 / 22–3228 / 23–3130 / 25–3231 / 25–3728 / 23–3525 / 20–33
RH %55 / 49–6056 / 51–6255 / 52–6158 / 52–6361 / 59–6669 / 65–7375 / 69–7774 / 69–7569 / 66–7260 / 55–6656 / 50–6154 / 48–60

The daily extremes were not used: the correction for elevation, -1125 m, is beyond the 1,000 m either way that a lapse rate is applied over, so the weather cell's ground is other terrain than the typical spot's. So no cold floor is read for this species, and the coldest month's mean nightly low is not taken as one. What that cell gave, so corrected, over 44 years: absolute minimum -22.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -10.7 °C.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 18 grid cells holding the 22 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 1229:5296 (28.525, 84.825). Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 18 distinct grid cells holding 22 of the 22 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1229:5296 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 28.50_85.000, lapse-corrected -1125 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2972 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 the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeChina South-Central, Tibet, East Himalaya, Nepal, West Himalaya, Myanmar, Thailand · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker28.216, 85.509 · in the densest population, 21 records (44% of those in range)
Kew's description“bulbous geophyte” · “temperate” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 48 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 22 of them placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 18 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 100 km away. 2 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 26 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 48 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Lilium nepalense, photograph 1did not loadLilium nepalense, photograph 2did not loadLilium nepalense, photograph 3did not loadLilium nepalense, photograph 4did not loadLilium nepalense, photograph 5did not loadLilium nepalense, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Sagnik Dutta Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); Denis Barthel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Rosa sericea Rosa sericea Silky rose Photo: CC BY, chintan sheth Notholirion macrophyllum Liliaceae Allium wallichii Allium wallichii Himalayan onion Photo: CC BY, Wang.QGBerberis mucrifolia Berberis mucrifolia Berberidaceae Photo: CC BY, Sagnik Dutta Roy Ribes takare Grossulariaceae Androsace hookeriana Primulaceae

Other Lilium 83 in the reference

Lilium akkusianum Lilium akkusianum Liliaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Ernst GügelLilium albanicum Lilium albanicum Albanian Lily Photo: CC BY, SokratisLilium amabile Lilium amabile Korean lily Photo: CC0, Étienne Lacroix-CarignanLilium apertum Lilium apertum Liliaceae Photo: CC BY, Wang.QGLilium auratum Lilium auratum Gold-band lily Photo: CC BY, 村山史世　（Fumiyo MURAYAMA)Lilium bakerianum Lilium bakerianum Baker's lily Photo: CC BY, Jiao Sun (孙娇)Lilium bolanderi Lilium bolanderi Bolander's lily Photo: CC BY, Parker James LloydLilium brownii Lilium brownii Brown's lily Photo: CC BY, Emilie PLilium bulbiferum Lilium bulbiferum Orange lily Photo: CC BY, Thomas GalewskiLilium callosum Lilium callosum Slim-stem lily Photo: CC BY, Oleg KosterinLilium canadense Lilium canadense Canada lily Photo: CC BY, Forest Botial-JarvisLilium candidum Lilium candidum Madonna lily Photo: CC BY, yelena_antipova all 84 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Lilium nepalense var. nepalense; Lilium ochroleucum. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Liliaceae
Described by
D.Don
Native to
China South-Central, Tibet, East Himalaya +4
Wild records
48 in range · 18 open

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 record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 2 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (2 at a botanic garden or arboretum; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 28.50_85.000, lapse-corrected -1125 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: the correction for elevation, -1125 m, is beyond the 1,000 m either way that a lapse rate is applied over, so the weather cell's ground is other terrain than the typical spot's, so no cold floor is shown
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.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 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.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 rules
Wikimedia Commons commons answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every 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 15 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

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