Ruellia californica, San Carlos Nuevo Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico

Ruellia californica (Rose) I.M.Johnst.

Acanthaceae

Climate known 78 photographs Tropical foliage plant

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

Ruellia californica is a species of flowering plant in the Acanthus family commonly known as the rama parda or flor del campo. This evergreen shrub is native to the Baja California peninsula and neighboring coastal Sonora. It is characterized by showy, funnelform blue-purple flowers that bloom throughout the year. There are two subspecies, one endemic to Baja California Sur, and they primarily differ in their presence or absence of hairs on their foliage. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Ruellia californica”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Ruellia

Ruellia is a genus of flowering plants commonly known as ruellias or wild petunias. They are not closely related to petunias (Petunia) although both genera belong to the same euasterid clade. The genus was named in honor of Jean Ruelle (1474–1537), herbalist and physician to Francis I of France and translator of several works of Dioscorides.

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

Family

Acanthaceae

Described by

(Rose) I.M.Johnst.

Native to

Mexico Northwest

Wild records

941 in range· 481 open

At a glance

Warmest month

33°C

Jul, mean day; nights 25 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

204mm/yr

2 wet months · peak Sep 64 mm (CHELSA)

Light

26–52DLI

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 tropical foliage plant by the genus Ruellia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, January and July to September in the northern hemisphere (January and July to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 204 mm a year, wettest September at 64 mm, driest May at 0 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 52 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 11.0 °C habitat night).

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 tropical foliage plant by the genus Ruellia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, January and July to September in the northern hemisphere (January and July to September at the habitat, northern).

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

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (149 mm of 204 mm) falls in January and July to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 25.9 °C against a yearly mean of 23.2 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: January to March and July.

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 204 mm a year, wettest September at 64 mm, driest May at 0 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

204 mm a year at the habitat, 149 mm of it January and July to September. Wettest month September at 64 mm, driest May at 0 mm; 4 months under 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 124 mm to 362 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: 26 to 52 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 52 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 24, the highest 90th-percentile month 53).

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 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 11.0 °C habitat night).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 11.0 °C, the absolute minimum 7.2 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 13.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells 9.9 °C to 17.0 °C), warmest day 33.3 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12 °C. The habitat figure, the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER), is 11.0 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a tropical foliage plant (grouped by the genus Ruellia, which is reliably one kind of plant) is 12 °C, which is higher, and the floor rule takes the higher.

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, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 47 to 57% 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 414 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	22 / 19–24	23 / 20–25	25 / 22–27	27 / 24–30	30 / 26–33	33 / 28–36	33 / 30–37	33 / 30–36	32 / 30–35	30 / 28–32	26 / 24–28	22 / 20–25
Night °C	13 / 10–17	14 / 11–17	14 / 11–18	16 / 13–19	18 / 15–21	22 / 18–25	25 / 22–28	26 / 23–28	25 / 22–27	21 / 18–25	17 / 13–21	14 / 10–18
Rain mm	18 / 12–22	8 / 6–12	3 / 2–7	1 / 0–2	0 / 0–1	1 / 0–2	18 / 9–47	49 / 19–86	64 / 32–108	16 / 8–27	9 / 6–13	17 / 13–23
DLI	28 / 26–29	34 / 32–36	42 / 41–43	48 / 48–49	52 / 51–53	52 / 50–53	47 / 45–49	44 / 42–45	39 / 38–40	36 / 34–37	30 / 28–31	26 / 24–27
RH %	52 / 48–59	51 / 46–56	49 / 44–55	47 / 41–54	48 / 40–55	49 / 41–56	53 / 47–59	55 / 49–61	57 / 50–62	53 / 48–58	53 / 48–58	53 / 49–58

Each figure is the median across the 414 grid cells holding the 928 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 1306:1382 (24.675, -110.875). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 7.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 11.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.0 °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 414 distinct grid cells holding the 928 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1306:1382 (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 24.50_-110.625, lapse-corrected +289 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 411 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.

NativeMexico Northwest

Kew's description“desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker25.793, -111.256 · in the densest population, 585 records (62% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 941 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 481 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1 km away. 24 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 13 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 of the 941 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Abraham Sánchez Romero, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) Sue Carnahan, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Sula Vanderplank, 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 Ruellia californica, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Occurrence Download