Thelocactus bicolor (Galeotti ex Pfeiff.) Britton & Rose

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (256 mm of 352 mm) falls in June to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 23.6 °C against a yearly mean of 20.1 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December 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.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

352 mm a year at the habitat, 256 mm of it June to October. Wettest month July at 64 mm, driest March at 7 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 253 mm to 510 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.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 49 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 23, the highest 90th-percentile month 51).

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.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 1.6 °C, the absolute minimum -5.7 °C, about 1 frost night a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 39.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.0 °C in January (across the envelope cells 3.7 °C to 8.5 °C), warmest day 31.4 °C in May (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 1.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

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. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Relative humidity at the habitat: 45 to 57% 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.