7 photographs › At a glance
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar, shaded
- Apr, shaded
- May, shaded
- Jun, shaded
- Jul
- Aug
- Sep, shaded
- Oct, shaded
- Nov, shaded
- Dec
Summary
Serpocaulon sessilifolium is a species of fern in the family Polypodiaceae. It is native to Costa Rica and northern and western South America (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Guyana). Under the synonym Polypodium rimbachii, it was regarded as endemic to Ecuador and threatened by habitat loss.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Serpocaulon sessilifolium", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Grouped as a fern or moss, listed under the family Polypodiaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “epiphyte or lithophyte”.
Seasons
The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the median year's rain (1,479 mm of 2,104 mm) falls in March to June and September to November. The temperature curve is flat, 0.6 °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 habitat lies within 10° of the equator, where the shift rule does not apply, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.
Rain
2,104 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,479 mm of it March to June and September to November. Wettest month October at 256 mm, driest month January at 99 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,112 mm to 3,658 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 2,258 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 2,104 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: 26 to 32 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 22, the highest 90th-percentile month 36).
Warmth and air
Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 8.8 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range 5.8 °C to 16.0 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 18.1 °C in August (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is 8.8 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, January, in the median year (CHELSA); a month's mean of its nightly lows is warmer than the nights a floor is read from. The daily extremes were read at a weather cell whose ground is too far above or below the typical spot to correct for, and are not used.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 66 to 71% 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. CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. No cold floor is read without a daily extremes series; the coldest month's mean nightly low named in its sentence is not one. 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 Polypodiaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “epiphyte or lithophyte”. 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, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 17 °C in Jan, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Oct, Nov and Dec to 18 °C in Feb, Mar, Aug and Sep; mean nightly low from 9 °C in Jan, Feb, Mar, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov and Dec to 10 °C in Apr and May. The cold quarter, Sep to Nov, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low, centred on the 10 months in a row that tie for it. 2,104 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 65 habitat cells. 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 | 17 / 13–23 | 18 / 13–23 | 18 / 13–23 | 17 / 13–23 | 17 / 13–23 | 17 / 12–23 | 17 / 12–23 | 18 / 12–23 | 18 / 13–23 | 17 / 13–24 | 17 / 13–24 | 17 / 13–23 |
| Night °C | 9 / 6–16 | 9 / 6–16 | 9 / 6–16 | 10 / 6–16 | 10 / 6–16 | 9 / 6–16 | 9 / 5–15 | 9 / 5–16 | 9 / 5–16 | 9 / 6–16 | 9 / 6–16 | 9 / 6–16 |
| Rain mm | 99 / 47–168 | 136 / 85–198 | 196 / 120–262 | 250 / 131–382 | 230 / 91–462 | 157 / 62–427 | 125 / 51–424 | 120 / 49–364 | 164 / 56–393 | 256 / 92–392 | 226 / 87–334 | 145 / 84–228 |
| DLI | 31 / 27–34 | 31 / 28–34 | 31 / 27–34 | 28 / 24–32 | 26 / 22–31 | 27 / 22–31 | 28 / 25–33 | 31 / 27–36 | 32 / 25–36 | 30 / 24–35 | 28 / 23–33 | 30 / 25–32 |
| RH % | 68 / 60–72 | 69 / 61–72 | 69 / 62–72 | 71 / 65–74 | 70 / 65–73 | 68 / 63–74 | 67 / 62–73 | 66 / 60–72 | 68 / 60–71 | 69 / 62–73 | 70 / 64–74 | 69 / 62–72 |
The daily extremes were not used: the correction for elevation, +1219 m, is beyond the 1,000 m either way that a lapse rate is applied over, so the weather cell's ground is other terrain than the typical spot's. So no cold floor is read for this species, and the coldest month's mean nightly low is not taken as one. What that cell gave, so corrected, over 44 years: absolute minimum 1.8 °C, 1st-percentile night 4.4 °C.
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Nicolás Baresch Uribe, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Juan Carlos Caicedo Hernández, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Andrés Ramírez-Barrera, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Axinaea scutigera Melastomataceae Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Baresch Uribe
Munnozia senecionidis Asteraceae Photo: CC BY-SA, julianazuluaga-carrero
Columnea strigosa Gesneriaceae Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Baresch Uribe
Piper artanthe Piperaceae Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Baresch Uribe
Oligactis sessiliflora Asteraceae Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Baresch Uribe
Aegiphila bogotensis Lamiaceae Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Baresch UribeOther Serpocaulon 6 in the reference
Serpocaulon adnatum Polypodiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Juan Olave Serpocaulon dissimile Polypodiaceae 
Serpocaulon fraxinifolium Polypodiaceae Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Baresch Uribe
Serpocaulon levigatum Polypodiaceae Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Baresch Uribe
Serpocaulon loriceum Clambering Polypody Photo: CC BY, Zac Peterson
Serpocaulon triseriale Angle-vein Fern Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Baresch Uribe Names & registers
Also known as Goniophlebium biauriculatum; Goniophlebium cordatum; Goniophlebium surucuchense; Polypodium andinum; Polypodium biauriculatum and 13 more. (GBIF Backbone)
Kew accepts as species of their own Polypodium kunzeanum: 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)
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 5.50_-72.500, lapse-corrected +1219 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: the correction for elevation, +1219 m, is beyond the 1,000 m either way that a lapse rate is applied over, so the weather cell's ground is other terrain than the typical spot's, so no cold floor is shownwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22inat.photos.wild answeredasked 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 2026-10-22inat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22none of the photographs on this page is credited to GBIF: those shown are other sources', and GBIF's were the same photographs or were set aside by the photograph rulescommons answeredasked 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 48 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.