Species
+

Nuphar pumila (Timm) DC.

Least Water-Lily, Least Yellow Pond-Lily, Least Yellow Water-Lily, Mała gingawa

Climate known 102 photographs
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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

Nuphar pumila, the least water-lily, is a perennial, rhizomatous, aquatic herb in the family Nymphaeaceae native to subarctic and temperate Eurasia.

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

About the genus · Nuphar

Nuphar is a genus of aquatic plants in the family Nymphaeaceae, with a temperate to subarctic Northern Hemisphere distribution. Common names include water-lily, pond-lily, alligator-bonnet or bonnet lily, and spatterdock.

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

Family
Nymphaeaceae
Described by
(Timm) DC.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +42
Wild records
1533 in range· 1245 open

At a glance

Warmest month
19°C
Jul, mean day; nights 12 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
808mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 103 mm (CHELSA)
Light
1–33DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 808 mm a year, wettest July at 103 mm, driest April at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 1 to 33 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -22.9 °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 Nuphar lapponica Laest.; Nuphar luteum subsp. pumilum (Timm) Bonnier & Layens; Nuphar shimadai Hayata, 1916; Nuphar vogesiaca; Nymphaea lutea subsp. pumila (Timm) Bonnier & Layens and 1 more.

Cultivation

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 (623 mm of 808 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 22.8 °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 808 mm a year, wettest July at 103 mm, driest April at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

808 mm a year at the habitat, 623 mm of it May to December. Wettest month July at 103 mm, driest April at 40 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 652 mm to 1955 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: 1 to 33 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 1 to 33 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 0, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

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 -22.9 °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 -22.9 °C, the absolute minimum -38.1 °C, about 204 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 22.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -10.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells -14.9 °C to -0.8 °C), warmest day 18.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -22.9 °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: 58 to 71% 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 -5 °C in Jan to 19 °C in Jul; mean night from -10 °C in Jan to 12 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 808 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1148 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -38.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 22.1 °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°frost22.1° 99th-percentile day (undated)-38.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 1–33RH 58–71 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1148 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 °C-5 / -9–4-5 / -9–4-1 / -4–75 / 2–1111 / 8–1716 / 13–2019 / 16–2217 / 14–2112 / 9–176 / 2–13-0 / -4–7-4 / -8–4
Night °C-10 / -15–-1-10 / -14–-1-7 / -10–1-2 / -5–33 / 0–78 / 6–1112 / 9–1410 / 8–146 / 4–102 / -2–7-4 / -10–3-9 / -14–-0
Rain mm56 / 39–20542 / 31–15647 / 33–16740 / 33–12260 / 43–13482 / 66–141103 / 74–15997 / 78–16975 / 61–19377 / 58–20270 / 49–18959 / 40–198
DLI2 / 0–86 / 3–1414 / 11–2124 / 22–3032 / 29–3533 / 30–3731 / 27–3523 / 19–3014 / 11–227 / 4–152 / 1–91 / 0–7
RH %71 / 63–7569 / 62–7365 / 61–6760 / 58–6458 / 56–6358 / 56–6460 / 59–6562 / 61–6665 / 62–6768 / 63–7170 / 63–7471 / 63–75

Each figure is the median across the 1148 grid cells holding the 1394 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 518:3878 (64.075, 13.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -38.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -22.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 22.1 °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 1148 distinct grid cells holding the 1394 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 518:3878 (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 64.00_13.750, lapse-corrected -74 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 523 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.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, Spain, Albania, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Altay, Chita, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Amur, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Kuril Is., Magadan, Primorye, Sakhalin, Kazakhstan, China South-Central, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, China Southeast, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan
Extinct inBelgium· recorded as extinct by WCVP: history, not habitat; no records are tested against these regions
Kew's description“rhizomatous hydrogeophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker66.473, 23.447 · in the densest population, 520 records (34% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1533 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 1245 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 11 km away. 35 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 139 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 1533 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Nuphar pumilaNuphar pumilaNuphar pumilaNuphar pumilaNuphar pumilaNuphar pumilaNuphar pumilaNuphar pumila

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (4); (c) Oleg Kosterin, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Марина Садыкова, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

Postglacial history of vegetation, human activity and lake-level changes at Jezioro Linówek in northeast Poland, based on multi-proxy data
Mariusz Gałka, Kazimierz Tobolski, Edyta Zawisza, Tomasz Goślar (2013) · Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Hybridization as a threat in climate relict Nuphar pumila (Nymphaeaceae)
Nils Arrigo, Sébastien Bétrisey, Larissa Graf, Julia Bilat (2016) · Biodiversity and Conservation
Biogeochemical specialization of macrophytes and their role as a biofilter in the Selenga delta
Galina Shinkareva, Mikhail Lychagin, М. К. Тарасов, Jan Pietroń (2019) · GEOGRAPHY ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY
Aquatic vegetation as an indicator of littoral habitats and various stages of lake aging in north-eastern Poland
Stanisław Kłosowski, Ewa Jabłońska, Marcin Szańkowski (2011) · Annales de Limnologie - International Journal of Limnology
An attempt to prepare Macrophyte Index for Rivers for assessment watercourses in Kazakhstan
Ruslan Muratov, Krzysztof Szoszkiewicz, Айжан Жамангара, Szymon Jusik (2015) · Meteorology Hydrology and Water Management
Ecology of rare water plant communities in lakes of north-eastern Poland
Ewa Jabłońska, Stanisław Kłosowski (2012) · Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae
Notes on the taxonomy of Nymphaeaceae and Menyanthaceae in Mongolia
Shukherdorj Baasanmunkh, Batlai Oyuntsetseg, Magsar Urgamal, Joscelyn Norris (2021) · Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity
Nupharopumiline, a new quinolizine alkaloid from Nuphar pumila
Pekka Peura, Mauri Lounasmaa (1977) · Phytochemistry
Glacial relicts in the Alps: the decline and conservation strategy for Nuphar pumila (Nymphaeaceae)
Sébastien Bétrisey, Nils Arrigo, Larissa Graf, Julia Bilat (2020) · Alpine Botany

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 144 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.