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Stipa arabica; photograph Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SAKrzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Stipa arabica Trin. & Rupr.

Poaceae · South European Russia, Kazakhstan +18

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Stipa arabica, photograph Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsStipa arabica, photograph Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 3 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Coldest month, mean nightly low
-7.4°C
Jan at the habitat, not a floor; extremes not used (the weather cell's ground is too far off) CHELSA
Warmest month, mean daily high
30°C
Jul at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
445mm
7 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
19–50DLI
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
Wet winters: the rain comes December to May, with nights below freezing; no growing season read. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a rainy season and no growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (277 mm of 353 mm) falls in December to May, the cooler part of the year, but the mean nightly low is below freezing in February, March, April and January, so the rule reads no growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: June to November.

Rain

353 mm in the median year at the habitat, 277 mm of it December to May. Wettest month April at 58 mm, driest month August at 5 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 124 mm to 803 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 445 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 353 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: 19 to 50 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 10, the highest 90th-percentile month 53).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low -7.4 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -15.7 °C to 5.3 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 29.7 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is -7.4 °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.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 47 to 57% 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, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Stipa arabica through the yearWarmest month July, mean daily high 30 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low -7.4 °C; 353 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°frost°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 19–50RH 47–57%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 137 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C2 / -6–134 / -5–149 / 1–1817 / 9–2422 / 16–2827 / 20–3230 / 23–3429 / 22–3324 / 18–3018 / 12–2612 / 5–205 / -2–15
Night °C-7 / -16–5-6 / -14–5-1 / -9–75 / -2–1110 / 3–1515 / 7–1917 / 11–2117 / 10–2012 / 6–186 / 1–161 / -5–11-4 / -12–7
Rain mm40 / 17–9149 / 17–11457 / 18–13658 / 7–9842 / 2–8713 / 0–7010 / 0–615 / 0–466 / 1–4115 / 5–5427 / 11–4831 / 15–66
DLI21 / 12–2427 / 19–3135 / 26–3843 / 35–4647 / 38–5150 / 41–5349 / 41–5246 / 37–4839 / 29–4230 / 20–3422 / 13–2619 / 10–22
RH %57 / 53–6357 / 53–6356 / 52–6253 / 47–6149 / 44–6147 / 40–5848 / 40–5648 / 40–5748 / 41–5851 / 44–6053 / 47–6256 / 51–62

The daily extremes were not used: the correction for elevation, -1384 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 -24.8 °C, 1st-percentile night -11.0 °C.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 137 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (157 records in those cells; 2 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 1087:4982 (35.625, 69.125). 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 137 distinct grid cells holding 157 of the 159 in-range records (2 further cells with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1087:4982 (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 35.50_69.375, lapse-corrected -1384 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1547 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.
NativeSouth European Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan, Turkmenistan, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Sinai, Turkey, Tibet, Xinjiang, India, Pakistan, West Himalaya · 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 marker39.902, 45.248 · in the densest population, 108 records (25% of those in range)
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 427 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 157 of them in the land cells it reads, of 159 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 284 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 3 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 268 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 of the 427 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Stipa arabica, photograph 1did not loadStipa arabica, photograph 2did not load

Photographs: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (2).

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

Diarthron vesiculosum Diarthron vesiculosum Thymelaeaceae Photo: CC BY, Alexander DubyninIxiolirion tataricum Ixiolirion tataricum Ixioliriaceae Photo: CC BY, Ioannis MagourasAllium scabriscapum Allium scabriscapum Amaryllidaceae Photo: CC0, author not statedTulipa turkestanica Tulipa turkestanica Liliaceae Photo: CC BY, jeanjacquesgodon Phlomis cancellata Lamiaceae Bellevalia turkestanica Bellevalia turkestanica Asparagaceae Photo: CC BY, Morten Ross

Other Stipa 15 in the reference

Stipa barbata Stipa barbata Poaceae Photo: CC BY, Mehdi ChetibiStipa borysthenica Stipa borysthenica Poaceae Photo: CC BY, Oleksii VasyliukStipa capillata Stipa capillata Dwarf Feather Grass Photo: CC0, author not statedStipa dasyphylla Stipa dasyphylla Poaceae Photo: CC0, author not statedStipa krylovii Stipa krylovii Poaceae Photo: CC BY, Urgamal MagsarStipa lessingiana Stipa lessingiana Needle Grass Photo: CC BY, Dmitriy BochkovStipa offneri Stipa offneri Rough-leaved feather grass Photo: CC BY-SA, aureliopenya57Stipa pennata Stipa pennata European feather grass Photo: CC BY, Oleg Kosterin Stipa pontica Poaceae Stipa pulcherrima Stipa pulcherrima Golden feather grass Photo: CC BY, Dmitriy Bochkov Stipa purpurea Poaceae Stipa sareptana Stipa sareptana Poaceae Photo: CC BY, ivansemenkov all 16 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Stipa arabica subsp. caspia; Stipa arabica subsp. koenigii; Stipa arabica subsp. prilipkoana; Stipa arabica var. meyeriana; Stipa arabica var. prilipkoana and 20 more. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataiNaturalist

The record

Family
Poaceae
Described by
Trin. & Rupr.
Native to
South European Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan +17
Wild records
427 in range · 284 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; 1 record within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (1 at a botanic garden or arboretum; 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 35.50_69.375, lapse-corrected -1384 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: the correction for elevation, -1384 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 shown
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild nothing to reportasked 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 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22
Wikimedia Commons commons 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 39 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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