18 photographs › At a glance
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May, shaded
- Jun, shaded
- Jul, shaded
- Aug, shaded
- Sep, shaded
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec
About the genus · Sisyrinchium
Sisyrinchium is a large genus of annual to perennial flowering plants in the family Iridaceae. Native to the New World, the species are known as blue-eyed grasses. Although they are not true grasses (Poaceae), they are monocots.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Sisyrinchium", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Seasons
The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (278 mm of 396 mm) falls in November to March, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 11.5 °C against a yearly mean of 6.0 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: May to September.
Rain
396 mm in the median year at the habitat, 278 mm of it November to March. Wettest month January at 73 mm, driest month June at 11 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 330 mm to 833 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 394 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 396 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: 19 to 52 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 18, the highest 90th-percentile month 55).
Warmth and air
Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low -6.3 °C in July (across the grid cells of the range -11.2 °C to 0.2 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 17.7 °C in January (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is -6.3 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, July, 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: 48 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. 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.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, southern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 4 °C in Jul to 18 °C in Jan; mean nightly low from -6 °C in Jul to 8 °C in Jan. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low. 396 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 15 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 | 18 / 15–22 | 17 / 14–21 | 15 / 12–19 | 12 / 9–16 | 8 / 4–14 | 6 / 1–12 | 4 / -1–11 | 6 / 1–13 | 9 / 3–14 | 13 / 7–17 | 15 / 11–19 | 17 / 14–21 |
| Night °C | 8 / 4–12 | 7 / 3–12 | 6 / 1–11 | 2 / -3–7 | -2 / -7–4 | -5 / -10–1 | -6 / -11–0 | -5 / -10–2 | -4 / -9–3 | 0 / -6–6 | 4 / -2–9 | 7 / 2–11 |
| Rain mm | 73 / 60–135 | 63 / 52–134 | 55 / 47–87 | 27 / 24–40 | 15 / 12–34 | 11 / 8–45 | 16 / 11–52 | 15 / 12–48 | 17 / 15–27 | 17 / 15–30 | 35 / 28–50 | 52 / 43–86 |
| DLI | 50 / 49–53 | 44 / 43–47 | 36 / 34–40 | 28 / 27–32 | 22 / 20–25 | 19 / 18–23 | 21 / 20–26 | 27 / 26–31 | 35 / 34–40 | 44 / 43–49 | 50 / 49–55 | 52 / 51–55 |
| RH % | 60 / 54–63 | 61 / 55–63 | 64 / 54–66 | 59 / 51–61 | 53 / 47–56 | 48 / 43–52 | 48 / 43–51 | 50 / 45–52 | 53 / 49–55 | 54 / 51–56 | 56 / 51–57 | 58 / 51–60 |
The daily extremes were not used: the correction for elevation, +1402 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 -15.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -10.6 °C.
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Bruno Alzugaray, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); (c) Nahuel Di Marco, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Agustín Zarco, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Guillermo Debandi, 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.
Echinopsis formosa Cactaceae Photo: CC0, Stickpen
Maihueniopsis wagenknechtii Cactaceae Photo: CC0, author not stated
Mulguraea tridens Verbenaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Cecilia Briceño
Maihueniopsis glomerata Cactaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Bruno Alzugaray
Maihueniopsis leoncito Cactaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, don chululo
Ephedra frustillata Patagonian Ephedra Photo: CC BY, Sebastián Saiter V.Other Sisyrinchium 25 in the reference
Sisyrinchium albidum White blue-eyed grass Photo: CC0, author not stated
Sisyrinchium angustifolium Narrow-leaf blue-eyed-grass Photo: CC BY, Matt Pelikan
Sisyrinchium arenarium Iridaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Grzegorz Grzejszczak
Sisyrinchium atlanticum Eastern blue-eyed grass Photo: CC0, author not stated
Sisyrinchium bellum Western blue-eyed grass Photo: CC BY-SA, paulexcoff
Sisyrinchium bermudiana Blue-eyed-grass Photo: CC0, author not stated
Sisyrinchium californicum Yellow-eyed-grass Photo: CC BY, Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas
Sisyrinchium campestre Prairie blue-eyed grass Photo: CC BY, Bria Abeles-Allison
Sisyrinchium chilense Swordleaf blue-eyed grass Photo: CC BY, Lucas Carbone
Sisyrinchium convolutum Iridaceae Photo: CC BY, Anders Hastings
Sisyrinchium demissum Stiff blue-eyed grass Photo: CC BY, Abraham Sánchez Romero
Sisyrinchium ensigerum Swordleaf blue-eyed grass Photo: CC BY, IDClaire all 26 ›Names & registers
Also known as Sisyrinchium macrocarpum subsp. macrocarpum. (GBIF Backbone)
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 2026-10-21; 2 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (2 at a botanic garden or arboretum; Wikidata's list)climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -32.50_-68.750, lapse-corrected +1402 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: the correction for elevation, +1402 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 2026-10-22IPNI and POWO linked by Kew's number for Sisyrinchium macrocarpum Hieron. (the item's: IPNI 330263-2, POWO 441163-1)wikipedia nothing to reportasked 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 5 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.