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Spiranthes australis; photograph heikindai_87, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF CC0heikindai_87, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF

Spiranthes australis (R.Br.) Lindl.

Orchidaceae · East European Russia, Altay +64

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Spiranthes australis, photograph heikindai_87, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIFSpiranthes australis, photograph 岸本年郎, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFSpiranthes australis, photograph 岸本年郎, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFSpiranthes australis, photograph Roman A. Lagazyuk (Роман А. Лагазюк), CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFSpiranthes australis, photograph Алёна Осипова, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFSpiranthes australis, photograph Алёна Осипова, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF 24 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
1.4°C
Record low -2.3 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
24°C
Jan and Feb at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
968mm
12 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
15–43DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Rain spread: 70% of the median year's rain takes 8 months, so no short rainy season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Spiranthes australis, commonly known as austral ladies tresses, is a species of orchid that grows from southern Caspian Sea and Himalayan Mountains to the South-West Pacific and north throughout Japan. It has up to about ten leaves at the base of a flowering stem with up to sixty small pink and white flowers spirally arranged around it.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Spiranthes australis", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads no short rainy season: 70% of the median year's rain (681 mm of 961 mm) takes 8 months, October to February and April to June. Mean temperature moves 10.9 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: April to August and October to December.

Rain

961 mm in the median year at the habitat, 681 mm of it October to February and April to June. Wettest month February at 98 mm, driest month September at 66 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 716 mm to 1,414 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 968 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 961 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: 15 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 11, the highest 90th-percentile month 48).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 1.4 °C, the absolute minimum -2.3 °C, 33 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.6 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 4.7 °C in July (across the grid cells of the range 0.1 °C to 10.3 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 24.3 °C in January (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 1.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 58 to 62% 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 +153 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.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, southern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Spiranthes australis through the yearWarmest months January and February, mean daily high 24 °C; coldest month July, mean nightly low 4.7 °C; 961 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, southern hemisphere.-10°0°10°20°30°40°frost35.6° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER-2.3° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 15–43RH 58–62%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 469 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C24 / 21–2724 / 20–2622 / 19–2418 / 15–2215 / 12–1912 / 9–1712 / 8–1613 / 10–1816 / 13–2118 / 14–2221 / 17–2423 / 18–25
Night °C14 / 11–2014 / 11–2013 / 9–1910 / 6–178 / 4–146 / 1–115 / 0–105 / 1–117 / 3–139 / 5–1511 / 7–1713 / 9–19
Rain mm81 / 41–14798 / 32–17973 / 45–15474 / 47–13678 / 52–12588 / 55–12473 / 49–11168 / 45–11566 / 49–9680 / 59–10494 / 55–13088 / 56–139
DLI42 / 40–4837 / 35–4231 / 29–3524 / 21–2718 / 14–2115 / 11–1917 / 12–2123 / 17–2730 / 25–3537 / 34–3940 / 39–4443 / 41–47
RH %60 / 55–6361 / 55–6561 / 56–6461 / 58–6362 / 59–6462 / 58–6761 / 57–6658 / 55–6458 / 55–6258 / 56–6059 / 56–6159 / 55–62

Records on both sides of the equator: the 335 cells at least 10° north of it have seasons six months apart and are left out, not combined into a year no place has. These figures are across the 469 cells that remain: the 466 at least 10° south and the 3 within 10° of the equator, which stay in either way.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 469 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (652 records in those cells; 3 more cells hold records but no land by the elevation layer, so those records sit at sea and the cells are left out), with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 2377:6645 (-28.875, 152.275). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -2.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 1.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.6 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 469 distinct grid cells holding 652 of the 1123 in-range records (3 further cells with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out) on the southern side of the equator (335 cells poleward of 10° north, 466 poleward of 10° south: the two sides' seasons are not combined, and cells within 10° of the equator stay in); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2377:6645 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -29.00_152.500, lapse-corrected +153 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 595 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 the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeEast European Russia, Altay, Buryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Amur, Khabarovsk, Kuril Is., Primorye, Sakhalin, Kazakhstan, Transcaucasus, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, China South-Central, Hainan, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, Qinghai, China Southeast, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Himalaya, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, New Guinea, Solomon Is., New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Chatham Is., New Zealand North, New Zealand South, Niue, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker-35.428, 149.941 · in the densest population, 570 records (34% of those in range)
Doubtfully present inTaiwan · recorded by WCVP as doubtfully present: not part of the range records are tested against
Kew's description“tuberous geophyte” · “temperate” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 1698 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 652 of them in the land cells it reads, of 1123 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 1071 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 28 km away. 7 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 575 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1698 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Spiranthes australis, photograph 1did not loadSpiranthes australis, photograph 2did not loadSpiranthes australis, photograph 3did not loadSpiranthes australis, photograph 4did not loadSpiranthes australis, photograph 5did not loadSpiranthes australis, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: heikindai_87, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF; 岸本年郎, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (2); Roman A. Lagazyuk (Роман А. Лагазюк), CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Алёна Осипова, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (2).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Hackelia latifolia Hackelia latifolia Forest Hound’s-tongue Photo: CC BY, krumpiankingEucalyptus sieberi Eucalyptus sieberi Silvertop-ash Photo: CC BY, Bryce Watts-ParkerLomatia ilicifolia Lomatia ilicifolia Holly lomatia Photo: CC BY, Max Campbell Blechnum patersonii Aspleniaceae Calomeria amaranthoides Calomeria amaranthoides Incenseplant Photo: CC BY, grampianshikerPolyscias sambucifolia Polyscias sambucifolia Elderberry-ash Photo: CC BY, Ian Rainbow

Other Spiranthes 13 in the reference

Spiranthes arcisepala Spiranthes arcisepala Appalachian ladies'-tresses Photo: CC BY, Mike ZifkinSpiranthes bightensis Spiranthes bightensis Atlantic Ladies' Tresses Photo: CC BY, Zihao WangSpiranthes casei Spiranthes casei Case's ladies'-tresses Photo: CC BY, Dan RileySpiranthes cernua Spiranthes cernua Nodding ladies'-tresses Photo: CC BY, Jeff WilsonSpiranthes × hongkongensis Spiranthes × hongkongensis Orchidaceae Photo: CC BY, Lawrence HyltonSpiranthes lacera Spiranthes lacera Northern slender ladies'-tresses Photo: CC BY, Justin DonahueSpiranthes ochroleuca Spiranthes ochroleuca Yellow ladies'-tresses Photo: CC BY, Peyton PhelpsSpiranthes odorata Spiranthes odorata Marsh ladies'-tresses Photo: CC0, author not statedSpiranthes ovalis Spiranthes ovalis October ladies'-tresses Photo: CC BY, Daniel J. LaytonSpiranthes romanzoffiana Spiranthes romanzoffiana Irish lady's-tresses Photo: CC BY, Matt BergerSpiranthes sinensis Spiranthes sinensis Chinese Spiranthes Photo: CC0, author not statedSpiranthes spiralis Spiranthes spiralis Autumn Lady's-tresses Photo: CC BY, petitcrabe all 14 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Calanthe australis; Gyrostachys australis; Gyrostachys australis var. amoena; Gyrostachys congesta; Gyrostachys novifuburgensis and 25 more. (GBIF Backbone)

Kew accepts as species of their own Spiranthes stylites: 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)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipedia

The record

Family
Orchidaceae
Described by
(R.Br.) Lindl.
Native to
East European Russia, Altay, Buryatiya +63
Wild records
1698 in range · 1071 open

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 record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 61 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (37 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 2 at a herbarium, 22 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -29.00_152.500, lapse-corrected +153 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22IPNI and POWO linked by Kew's number for Spiranthes australis (R.Br.) Lindl. (the item's: IPNI 3017646-1, POWO 319550-2)
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist taxon inat.taxon not asked
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild not asked
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every 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 82 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

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