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Torenia flava; photograph Toby Y, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF CC BYToby Y, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF

Torenia flava Buch.-Ham. ex Benth.

Linderniaceae · China South-Central, Hainan +13

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Torenia flava, photograph Toby Y, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTorenia flava, photograph 黃美滿, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTorenia flava, photograph 黃美滿, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTorenia flava, photograph 黃美滿, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTorenia flava, photograph 黃美滿, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFTorenia flava, photograph 黃美滿, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF 18 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
9.6°C
Record low 3.3 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
30°C
Jul and Aug at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
2,638mm
12 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
20–35DLI
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 summers: the rain comes April to September, read as a summer growing season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

About the genus · Torenia

Torenia is a genus of plants now classified in the family Linderniaceae. Torenia has also been classified in the figwort family Scrophulariaceae. Species are often called wishbone flowers, bluewings, or in Hawaii nanioola'a or ola'a beauty. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Torenia", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (1,942 mm of 2,518 mm) falls in April to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 26.0 °C against a yearly mean of 22.2 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to March.

Rain

2,518 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,942 mm of it April to September. Wettest month June at 395 mm, driest month December at 53 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,553 mm to 3,459 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 2,638 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 2,518 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: 20 to 35 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 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 38).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 9.6 °C, the absolute minimum 3.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.8 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 11.6 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range 9.1 °C to 16.0 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 29.8 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 9.6 °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: 60 to 67% 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 -459 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, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Torenia flava through the yearWarmest months July and August, mean daily high 30 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low 11.6 °C; 2,518 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, northern hemisphere.0°10°20°30°40°35.8° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER3.3° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 20–35RH 60–67%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 20 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 °C18 / 17–2719 / 18–2921 / 20–2924 / 23–3027 / 26–3029 / 27–3130 / 28–3130 / 27–3128 / 27–3026 / 25–2823 / 21–2719 / 18–26
Night °C12 / 9–1612 / 11–1815 / 13–2118 / 17–2422 / 19–2424 / 20–2524 / 21–2624 / 21–2623 / 20–2520 / 18–2217 / 14–1913 / 10–16
Rain mm58 / 19–113122 / 31–188151 / 65–201200 / 100–248309 / 230–445395 / 208–564328 / 199–557351 / 234–569359 / 235–525135 / 68–33057 / 33–20953 / 6–131
DLI20 / 16–3120 / 18–3426 / 21–3730 / 24–3831 / 26–3432 / 28–3435 / 31–3832 / 30–3530 / 28–3128 / 24–3024 / 19–2921 / 16–29
RH %63 / 56–6565 / 59–6665 / 59–6765 / 61–6965 / 64–7066 / 63–7065 / 63–6967 / 65–6966 / 65–6864 / 61–6662 / 58–6460 / 55–64
How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 20 grid cells holding the 23 in-range records, 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 1326:6012 (23.675, 120.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 3.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 9.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.8 °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 20 distinct grid cells holding 23 of the 23 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1326:6012 (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 23.50_120.625, lapse-corrected -459 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 228 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.
NativeChina South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Jawa, Malaya, Sumatera · 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 marker24.09, 121.035 · in the densest population, 53 records (40% of those in range)
Kew's description“annual” · “wet tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 134 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 23 of them placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 55 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 24 km away. 5 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 111 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 134 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Torenia flava, photograph 1did not loadTorenia flava, photograph 2did not loadTorenia flava, photograph 3did not loadTorenia flava, photograph 4did not loadTorenia flava, photograph 5did not loadTorenia flava, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: Toby Y, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; 黃美滿, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (5).

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

Canarium album Canarium album Chinese white olive Photo: CC0, 葉子Clerodendrum canescens Clerodendrum canescens Lamiaceae Photo: CC BY, Zheng-An WangMelicope pteleifolia Melicope pteleifolia Thin-Evodia Photo: CC BY, 黃美滿Alocasia odora Alocasia odora Asian taro Photo: CC BY, Caleb CattoRotala rotundifolia Rotala rotundifolia Roundleaf toothcup Photo: CC0, author not statedParthenocissus dalzielii Parthenocissus dalzielii Diverse-leaved Creeper Photo: CC0, author not stated

Other Torenia 9 in the reference

Torenia anagallis Torenia anagallis Linderniaceae Photo: CC BY, Jacek PietruszewskiTorenia asiatica Torenia asiatica Wishbone flower Photo: CC BY, Cricket RaspetTorenia benthamiana Torenia benthamiana Bentham's Torenia Photo: CC BY, Toby YTorenia concolor Torenia concolor Lesser Torenia Photo: CC BY, 黃美滿Torenia crustacea Torenia crustacea Brittle False Pimpernel Photo: CC BY, Tony van KampenTorenia fordii Torenia fordii Linderniaceae Photo: CC BY, eustreptospondylusTorenia fournieri Torenia fournieri Bluewings Photo: CC0, author not statedTorenia polygonoides Torenia polygonoides Linderniaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, MokkieTorenia violacea Torenia violacea Linderniaceae Photo: CC BY, Yung-Lun Lin

Names & registers

Also known as Mimulus hirsutus; Pentsteira racemosa; Torenia baillonii; Torenia hokutensis. (GBIF Backbone)

Registers not checked Wikidata did not answer when this page was built, so the links it gives (POWO, IPNI, World Flora Online, Wikipedia) were not checked; any shown here are kept from an earlier build. Not asked, or not answered, is not "none": nothing here claims there is none. Why the site says it this way.
GBIF

The record

Family
Linderniaceae
Described by
Buch.-Ham. ex Benth.
Native to
China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast +12
Wild records
134 in range · 55 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; 3 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (1 at a herbarium, 2 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 23.50_120.625, lapse-corrected -459 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata failedasked 2026-10-22query.wikidata.org 502 (batched: Wikidata's query service, 100 GBIF keys)
Wikipedia wikipedia nothing to reportasked 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 19 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

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