25 photographs › At a glance
- Jan, shaded
- Feb, shaded
- Mar, shaded
- Apr
- May
- Jun
- Jul, under 5 mm of rain
- Aug, under 5 mm of rain
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov, shaded
- Dec, shaded
Summary
Nepeta italica is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae, native to east central Italy, and from the east Mediterranean to Iraq. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Nepeta italica", CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the genus · Nepeta
Nepeta is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae. The genus name, from Latin nepeta (“catnip”), is reportedly in reference to Nepete, an ancient Etruscan city. There are 295 accepted species.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Nepeta", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Seasons
The rain rule reads a rainy season and no growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (692 mm of 899 mm) falls in November to March, the cooler part of the year, but the mean nightly low is below freezing in February, March and January, so the rule reads no growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: May to September.
Rain
899 mm in the median year at the habitat, 692 mm of it November to March. Wettest month January at 156 mm, driest month August at 2 mm; 2 months under 5 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 608 mm to 1,269 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 930 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 899 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: 14 to 51 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 12, the highest 90th-percentile month 53).
Warmth and air
Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low -3.4 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -7.6 °C to 0.1 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 29.9 °C in July and August (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is -3.4 °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.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 41 to 58% 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.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 6 °C in Jan and Feb to 30 °C in Jul and Aug; mean nightly low from -3 °C in Jan and Feb to 17 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low, centred on the 2 months in a row that tie for it. 899 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Jan. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 24 habitat cells. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.
Figures by month
| Figure | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 6 / 2–9 | 6 / 3–10 | 10 / 6–14 | 16 / 11–19 | 21 / 16–25 | 27 / 21–32 | 30 / 23–36 | 30 / 24–35 | 26 / 22–31 | 21 / 16–23 | 13 / 9–16 | 7 / 4–11 |
| Night °C | -3 / -8–0 | -3 / -7–0 | 0 / -4–3 | 4 / 0–7 | 9 / 5–12 | 13 / 9–17 | 16 / 13–21 | 17 / 13–21 | 13 / 10–16 | 9 / 5–12 | 3 / -1–6 | -1 / -5–2 |
| Rain mm | 156 / 95–197 | 144 / 80–210 | 117 / 72–186 | 82 / 39–162 | 40 / 25–77 | 8 / 3–31 | 3 / 1–10 | 2 / 1–9 | 7 / 2–21 | 65 / 35–82 | 124 / 67–166 | 151 / 83–185 |
| DLI | 16 / 14–20 | 22 / 20–26 | 30 / 28–34 | 38 / 35–42 | 46 / 43–48 | 51 / 49–53 | 51 / 50–52 | 46 / 45–48 | 38 / 36–40 | 27 / 24–30 | 19 / 15–22 | 14 / 12–18 |
| RH % | 58 / 55–62 | 58 / 56–61 | 56 / 53–59 | 52 / 48–58 | 47 / 45–56 | 43 / 37–51 | 41 / 35–49 | 42 / 36–50 | 45 / 38–52 | 50 / 46–55 | 54 / 52–58 | 57 / 55–61 |
The daily extremes were not used: the correction for elevation, +1347 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 -10.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -5.9 °C.
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Marios Thoma, some rights reserved (CC BY) (6).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Prunus microcarpa Anti Lebanon Wild Cherry Photo: CC BY-SA, M. Hedayat
Salvia multicaulis Kurdish Basil Photo: CC BY, Joey Bom
Phlomis chrysophylla Goldleaf Lampwick Photo: CC BY, Mitch Van Dyke
Hyacinthella lineata Asparagaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Averater
Helleborus vesicarius Ranunculaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Zeynel Cebeci Ptilostemon diacanthus Asteraceae Other Nepeta 28 in the reference
Nepeta apuleji Lamiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz Nepeta argolica Lamiaceae Nepeta bucharica Bukharan Catmint 
Nepeta caerulea Lamiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Diego Alex
Nepeta cataria Cat-mint Photo: CC BY-SA, Amy MacPherson
Nepeta clarkei Lamiaceae Photo: CC BY, Epibase Nepeta complanata Lamiaceae 
Nepeta curviflora Syrian catnip Photo: CC BY, Nachman bones Nepeta everardii Lamiaceae 
Nepeta govaniana Lamiaceae Photo: CC BY, Scott Zona Nepeta granatensis Lamiaceae 
Nepeta grandiflora Caucasus catmint Photo: CC BY, Maria Kohanovskaya all 29 ›Names & registers
Also known as Glechoma italica. (GBIF Backbone)
The record
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 answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 35.00_33.125, lapse-corrected +1347 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: the correction for elevation, +1347 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 shownwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22inat.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 2026-10-22inat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery 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.