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Momordica silvatica Jongkind

Cucurbitaceae

Climate known Photographs not checked 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.

About the genus · Momordica

Momordica is a genus of about 60 species of annual or perennial climbers herbaceous or rarely small shrubs belonging to the family Cucurbitaceae, native of tropical and subtropical Africa and Asia and Australia. Most species produce floral oils and are visited by specialist pollinators in the apid tribe Ctenoplectrini. A molecular phylogeny that includes all species is available.

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

Family

Cucurbitaceae

Described by

Jongkind

Native to

Ivory Coast, Liberia

Wild records

8 in range· 8 open

At a glance

Warmest month

31°C

Feb, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1897mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Jun 331 mm (CHELSA)

Light

24–32DLI

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 Momordica, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, April to July and September to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.7 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1897 mm a year, wettest June at 331 mm, driest January at 32 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 32 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 19.1 °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.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Momordica, 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 sharp rainy season, April to July and September to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.7 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

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

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (1328 mm of 1897 mm) falls in April to July and September to October. The temperature curve is flat, 2.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 1897 mm a year, wettest June at 331 mm, driest January at 32 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1897 mm a year at the habitat, 1328 mm of it April to July and September to October. Wettest month June at 331 mm, driest January at 32 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1574 mm to 2678 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: 24 to 32 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 32 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 22, the highest 90th-percentile month 34).

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 19.1 °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 19.1 °C, the absolute minimum 15.2 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 21.5 °C in July (across the envelope cells 21.2 °C to 22.3 °C), warmest day 30.8 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 19.1 °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: 67 to 72% 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 8 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	30 / 30–32	31 / 30–32	31 / 30–32	30 / 30–31	30 / 29–30	28 / 28–29	27 / 27–28	27 / 27–28	28 / 27–29	29 / 28–29	30 / 29–30	30 / 29–31
Night °C	22 / 21–23	23 / 22–23	23 / 22–24	23 / 22–24	23 / 22–24	22 / 22–23	22 / 21–22	22 / 21–22	22 / 22–22	22 / 22–23	22 / 21–23	22 / 21–23
Rain mm	32 / 23–66	73 / 55–121	142 / 111–198	182 / 158–238	247 / 209–311	331 / 256–369	169 / 143–225	112 / 74–276	151 / 127–339	248 / 185–291	142 / 97–166	68 / 45–81
DLI	31 / 30–33	32 / 30–34	32 / 31–34	32 / 31–34	29 / 28–31	25 / 24–27	24 / 23–26	24 / 22–25	25 / 24–28	28 / 27–30	29 / 28–30	28 / 27–30
RH %	67 / 61–68	68 / 64–70	70 / 66–70	71 / 68–71	72 / 69–72	72 / 69–72	70 / 67–70	69 / 68–70	71 / 69–72	71 / 70–71	71 / 68–72	70 / 65–71

Each figure is the median across the 8 grid cells holding the 8 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 1689:3547 (5.525, -2.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 15.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 19.1 °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 8 distinct grid cells holding the 8 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1689:3547 (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 5.50_-2.500, lapse-corrected -23 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 74 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.

NativeIvory Coast, Liberia

Map marker5.667, -3.567 · in the densest population, 4 records (50% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 8 georeferenced records inside the native range, all openly licensed and shown on the map. Under a dozen records: treat the map and the climate as indicative.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 8 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Papers naming this species

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

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