3 photographs › At a glance
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About the genus · Ravenala
Ravenala is a genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the Strelitziaceae plant family. Classically, the genus was considered to include a single species, Ravenala madagascariensis from Madagascar.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Ravenala", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant, listed under the family Strelitziaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “tree”, “seasonally dry tropical”.
Seasons
The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the median year's rain (1,490 mm of 1,968 mm) falls in December to March. The temperature curve is flat, 3.0 °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, southern 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
1,968 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,490 mm of it December to March. Wettest month January at 446 mm, driest month July at 16 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,543 mm to 2,401 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 1,991 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 1,968 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, southern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.
Light
Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 43 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 30, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).
Warmth and air
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 18.2 °C, the absolute minimum 16.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.0 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 18.9 °C in July (across the grid cells of the range 17.4 °C to 22.4 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 29.9 °C in April (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 18.2 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).
Relative humidity at the habitat: 61 to 68% 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 -130 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.
Group. Listed under the family Strelitziaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “tree”, “seasonally dry tropical”. 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, southern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 28 °C in Jun, Jul and Aug to 30 °C in Mar, Apr and Oct; mean nightly low from 19 °C in Jul and Aug to 23 °C in Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Nov and Dec. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low, centred on the 2 months in a row that tie for it. 1,968 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 27 habitat cells. Over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER) the absolute minimum was 16.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. 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 | 29 / 28–30 | 29 / 28–30 | 30 / 28–31 | 30 / 28–31 | 29 / 28–31 | 28 / 26–30 | 28 / 26–30 | 28 / 25–30 | 29 / 26–32 | 30 / 27–33 | 29 / 28–33 | 29 / 28–31 |
| Night °C | 23 / 22–25 | 23 / 22–25 | 23 / 22–25 | 23 / 22–25 | 22 / 20–25 | 20 / 18–23 | 19 / 17–22 | 19 / 18–22 | 20 / 19–23 | 22 / 20–24 | 23 / 22–24 | 23 / 22–25 |
| Rain mm | 446 / 365–543 | 414 / 352–491 | 292 / 202–375 | 126 / 58–165 | 34 / 9–51 | 18 / 1–42 | 16 / 2–34 | 29 / 2–45 | 37 / 6–57 | 69 / 36–103 | 149 / 93–242 | 338 / 230–421 |
| DLI | 35 / 34–36 | 34 / 33–35 | 36 / 36–38 | 36 / 36–37 | 33 / 33–34 | 31 / 30–31 | 32 / 31–32 | 36 / 35–36 | 40 / 40–42 | 43 / 42–45 | 42 / 42–44 | 39 / 38–41 |
| RH % | 68 / 65–72 | 68 / 66–72 | 67 / 63–71 | 66 / 58–69 | 63 / 54–67 | 62 / 52–63 | 61 / 51–63 | 61 / 50–63 | 62 / 50–65 | 63 / 53–66 | 64 / 56–67 | 66 / 61–70 |
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: amantedarmanin, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (2).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Mascarenhasia arborescens Apocynaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Mijoro Rakotoarinivo
Coleus scutellarioides Common coleus Photo: CC BY, Fyodor Pudovikov
Mostuea brunonis Gelsemiaceae Photo: CC BY, jeanjacquesgodon
Sorindeia madagascariensis Anacardiaceae Photo: CC BY, Peter L Achuff
Dioscorea sansibarensis Zanzibar yam Photo: CC BY, Michael BerardozziOther Ravenala 5 in the reference
Ravenala blancii Strelitziaceae Photo: CC BY, Rafael Medina Ravenala grandis Strelitziaceae 
Ravenala hladikorum Strelitziaceae Photo: CC BY, Josip Skejo
Ravenala madagascariensis Traveler's-tree Photo: CC0, Brecht Verstraete
Ravenala menahirana Strelitziaceae Photo: CC BY, Rob Foster Names & registers
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 -14.00_48.125, lapse-corrected -130 m at 6.5 °C/kmwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22IPNI and POWO linked by Kew's number for Ravenala agatheae Haev. & Razanats. (the item's: IPNI 77302516-1, POWO 3295140-4)wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22inat.taxon not askedinat.photos.wild not askedinat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22commons nothing to reportasked 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 3 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.