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Ophioglossum costatum R.Br.

Large adder's tongue

Ophioglossaceae · Burkina, Ghana +44

Photographs not checked iNaturalist was skipped (not asked) when this page was built. Not asked, or not answered, is not "none": nothing here claims there is none. Why the site says it this way.
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Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
11.6°C
Record low 6.3 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
33°C
Nov and Dec at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
1,222mm
8 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
32–44DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in the habitat's months, not shifted
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
A sharp rainy season, December to March (the habitat's months, not shifted), in a year of even temperature. rain rule, CHELSA
Not shifted: the shift rule does not apply to this habitat. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the median year's rain (805 mm of 1,076 mm) falls in December to March. The temperature curve is flat, 3.8 °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. The temperature curve moves under 4 °C between the warmest and coldest month, where the shift rule does not apply, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

Rain

1,076 mm in the median year at the habitat, 805 mm of it December to March. Wettest month January at 236 mm, driest month August at 8 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 874 mm to 1,854 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 1,222 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 1,076 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: 32 to 44 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 26, the highest 90th-percentile month 46).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 11.6 °C, the absolute minimum 6.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 41.3 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 17.6 °C in July (across the grid cells of the range 12.9 °C to 22.1 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 32.8 °C in November (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 11.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 55 to 64% 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. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected +18 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. 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

Habitat climate of Ophioglossum costatum through the yearWarmest months November and December, mean daily high 33 °C; coldest month July, mean nightly low 17.6 °C; 1,076 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.0°10°20°30°40°50°41.3° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER6.3° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 32–44RH 55–64%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 62 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C32 / 28–3531 / 28–3532 / 27–3532 / 26–3431 / 24–3329 / 22–3128 / 22–3129 / 23–3330 / 25–3531 / 26–3733 / 27–3733 / 28–35
Night °C24 / 20–2624 / 21–2624 / 20–2523 / 19–2521 / 16–2418 / 14–2318 / 13–2219 / 14–2221 / 15–2422 / 18–2523 / 19–2624 / 20–26
Rain mm236 / 11–409234 / 30–404160 / 76–34183 / 31–18625 / 7–14513 / 1–16212 / 2–1398 / 0–13012 / 3–16642 / 18–14976 / 38–148175 / 18–279
DLI37 / 34–4036 / 33–3937 / 34–4037 / 31–3834 / 28–3632 / 26–3432 / 26–3536 / 27–3940 / 30–4344 / 32–4643 / 33–4639 / 33–43
RH %63 / 47–6764 / 51–6861 / 53–6658 / 49–6557 / 45–6655 / 44–6655 / 42–6655 / 42–6756 / 45–6857 / 48–6557 / 52–6661 / 53–66

Records on both sides of the equator: the 12 cells at least 10° north of it have seasons six months apart and are left out, not combined into a year no place has. These figures are across the 62 cells that remain: the 44 at least 10° south and the 18 within 10° of the equator, which stay in either way.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 62 grid cells holding the 71 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 2071:6228 (-13.575, 131.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 6.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 11.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 41.3 °C. 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 62 distinct grid cells holding 71 of the 84 in-range records on the southern side of the equator (12 cells poleward of 10° north, 44 poleward of 10° south: the two sides' seasons are not combined, and cells within 10° of the equator stay in); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2071:6228 (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 -13.50_131.250, lapse-corrected +18 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 121 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.
NativeBurkina, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Chad, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Northern Provinces, Ascension, Comoros, Madagascar, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Sri Lanka, West Himalaya, Thailand, Malaya, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, Chatham Is., New Zealand North, New Zealand South, Society Is., Caroline Is. · 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 marker10.707, 1.272 · in the densest population, 57 records (22% of those in range)
Kew's description“epiphyte” · “wet tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 262 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 71 of them in the land cells it reads, of 84 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 245 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 6 km away. 75 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 178 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 inside the densest 2° block of the 262 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Not checked. iNaturalist was skipped (not asked) when this page was built; GBIF's observation records with coordinates hold none. Not a statement that none exist.

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

Afrohybanthus enneaspermus Violaceae Fuirena umbellata Fuirena umbellata Yefen Photo: CC BY-SA, Lachlan CopelandUtricularia aurea Utricularia aurea Asian golden bladderwort Photo: CC BY, Scott W. GavinsChamaecrista mimosoides Chamaecrista mimosoides Japanese-tea Photo: CC BY, Hildegard KleinTacca leontopetaloides Tacca leontopetaloides Polynesian arrowroot Photo: CC BY, nick_goldwaterXenostegia tridentata Xenostegia tridentata African morningvine Photo: CC BY, Aparna

Other Ophioglossum 6 in the reference

Ophioglossum engelmannii Ophioglossum engelmannii Limestone adder's-tongue Photo: CC BY, Shelby Lyn SandersOphioglossum lusitanicum Ophioglossum lusitanicum Least adder's-tongue Photo: CC BY, Em LamondOphioglossum pendulum Ophioglossum pendulum Ophioglossaceae Photo: CC BY, Forest & Kim StarrOphioglossum petiolatum Ophioglossum petiolatum Longstem adderstongue Photo: CC BY, James Hardee Ophioglossum pycnostichum Ophioglossaceae Ophioglossum vulgatum Ophioglossum vulgatum Adder's-tongue Photo: CC0, author not stated

Names & registers

Also known as Goswamia costata; Ophioglossum aphrodisiacum; Ophioglossum brevipes; Ophioglossum bulbosum; Ophioglossum felixii and 5 more. (GBIF Backbone)

Kew accepts as species of their own Ophioglossum oleosum: older names in GBIF's record of this species that Kew's World Checklist accepts as other species. (WCVP, RBG Kew, file of 2026-06-04)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataiNaturalist

The record

Family
Ophioglossaceae
Described by
R.Br.
Native to
Burkina, Ghana, Guinea +43
Wild records
262 in range · 245 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
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -13.50_131.250, lapse-corrected +18 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild nothing to reportasked 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 nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22
Wikimedia Commons commons nothing to reportasked 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 61 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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