Species
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Ruellia humilis Nutt.

Fringeleaf wild petunia, fringe-leaf ruellia, fringeleaf wild petunia, low ruellia

Climate known 58 photographs Tropical foliage plant
Add one to my plants Sow seed

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 humilis is a species of flowering plant in the family Acanthaceae. It is native to the eastern United States. It is grown as an ornamental plant.

Text from Wikipedia, “Ruellia humilis”, 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
Nutt.
Native to
Illinois, Iowa, Kansas +22
Wild records
1849 in range· 461 open

At a glance

Warmest month
32°C
Jul, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1083mm/yr
12 wet months · peak May 130 mm (CHELSA)
Light
14–41DLI
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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to October in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1083 mm a year, wettest May at 130 mm, driest January at 56 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 14 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the -14.6 °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.

Also known as Dipteracanthus ciliosus var. parviflorus Nees; Gymnacanthus humilis (Nutt.) Oerst.; Ruellia carolinensis f. alba Steyerm.; Ruellia caroliniensis f. alba Steyerm.; Ruellia caroliniensis var. parviflora (Nees) S.F.Blake and 14 more.

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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to October 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 (813 mm of 1083 mm) takes 8 months, March to October. Mean temperature moves 24.9 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to April.

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 1083 mm a year, wettest May at 130 mm, driest January at 56 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1083 mm a year at the habitat, 813 mm of it March to October. Wettest month May at 130 mm, driest January at 56 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 903 mm to 1371 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: 14 to 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 14 to 41 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 11, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

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 -14.6 °C habitat night).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -14.6 °C, the absolute minimum -25.8 °C, about 97 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -2.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells -7.8 °C to 5.9 °C), warmest day 31.6 °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 -14.6 °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: 55 to 59% 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 7 °C in Jan to 32 °C in Jul; mean night from -2 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1083 mm of rain a year, most in May. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1243 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -25.8 °C and the 99th-percentile day 38.8 °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°frost38.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)-25.8° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 14–41RH 55–59 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1243 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 °C7 / -0–1610 / 2–1815 / 9–2220 / 16–2625 / 21–2929 / 26–3232 / 28–3431 / 27–3427 / 24–3121 / 17–2614 / 9–218 / 2–16
Night °C-2 / -8–6-0 / -6–84 / -1–1110 / 5–1515 / 11–1919 / 17–2322 / 19–2421 / 19–2517 / 15–2111 / 8–165 / 2–11-1 / -5–7
Rain mm56 / 27–10961 / 37–11085 / 60–12198 / 74–122130 / 104–151117 / 103–155104 / 61–12491 / 55–11492 / 76–11796 / 73–12885 / 55–12468 / 39–127
DLI16 / 13–1921 / 19–2328 / 26–2934 / 33–3637 / 37–3941 / 40–4241 / 39–4438 / 35–4031 / 29–3323 / 20–2616 / 13–2014 / 11–17
RH %58 / 57–6258 / 56–6056 / 55–5855 / 54–5758 / 56–6058 / 57–6058 / 55–6057 / 54–6057 / 55–5956 / 55–5858 / 57–5959 / 57–62

Each figure is the median across the 1243 grid cells holding the 1681 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 1054:1696 (37.275, -95.175). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -25.8 °C, 1st-percentile night -14.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.8 °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 1243 distinct grid cells holding the 1681 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1054:1696 (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 37.50_-95.000, lapse-corrected -13 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 269 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.
NativeIllinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia· introduced: New York
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker32.998, -96.741 · in the densest population, 1311 records (71% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1849 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 461 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 15 km away. 25 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 168 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 1849 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Ruellia humilisRuellia humilisRuellia humilisRuellia humilisRuellia humilisRuellia humilisRuellia humilisRuellia humilis

Photographs: (c) Sam Kieschnick, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Lexi Destria, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) Eric Knight, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

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

Determinants of taxonomic composition of plant viruses at the Nature Conservancy’s Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Oklahoma
Vaskar Thapa, Daniel J. McGlinn, Ulrich Melcher, Michael W. Palmer (2015) · Virus Evolution
Anthropogenic and soil environmental drivers of arbuscular mycorrhizal community composition differ between grassland ecosystems
Alice G. Tipton, Elizabeth L. Middleton, William G. Spollen, Candace Galen (2018) · Botany
Genetic and environmental integration of the hawkmoth pollination syndrome in Ruellia humilis (Acanthaceae)
John S. Heywood, Joseph S. Michalski, Braden K. McCann, Amber D. Russo (2017) · Annals of Botany
A COMPARISON OF THE VEGETATION OF THREE LIMESTONE GLADES IN CALHOUN COUNTY, ILLINOIS
W. E. McClain, John E. Ebinger (2002) · Southeastern Naturalist
Can heterosis and inbreeding depression explain the maintenance of outcrossing in a cleistogamous perennial?
Tatyana Y. Soto, Juan Diego Rojas‐Gutierrez, Christopher G. Oakley (2023) · American Journal of Botany
Monitoring Change in a Central U.S. Calcareous Glade: Resampling Transects Established in 1993
Robert Sutter, Thomas E. Govus, Regan Smyth, Carl Nordman (2011) · Natural Areas Journal
A “Cyclops” of the Bee Lasioglossum (Dialictus) bruneri (Hymenoptera: Halictidae)
Jennifer Hopwood (2007) · Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society
The potential for floral evolution in response to competing selection pressures following the loss of hawkmoth pollination in Ruellia humilis
John S. Heywood, Joseph S. Michalski, Braden K. McCann, Kara J. Andres (2022) · American Journal of 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.

Other Ruellia 2 in the reference

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