Species
+

Tricyrtis formosana Baker

Formosan Toad Lily

Climate known 10 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Tricyrtis formosana, the toad lily, is an East Asian species of herbaceous plant in the lily family. It is native to Taiwan and to Nansei-shoto.

Text from Wikipedia, “Tricyrtis formosana”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Tricyrtis

Tricyrtis is a genus of Asian flowering plants in the lily family, with approximately 20 known species. The species are commonly known in English as toad lilies. The genus has a native range from the Himalayas to eastern Asia, including China, Japan, Philippines and Taiwan, and a few species are cultivated for their ornamental qualities in other parts of the world.

Text from Wikipedia, “Tricyrtis”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Liliaceae
Described by
Baker
Native to
Nansei-shoto, Taiwan
Wild records
1338 in range· 155 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Jul, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
3164mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Sep 481 mm (CHELSA)
Light
17–36DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by Liliaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 3164 mm a year, wettest September at 481 mm, driest December at 81 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 7.1 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Compsoa formosana (Baker) Kuntze.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by Liliaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern).

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 (2358 mm of 3164 mm) falls in May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 24.2 °C against a yearly mean of 20.6 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November 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.

Rain Habitat rain 3164 mm a year, wettest September at 481 mm, driest December at 81 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

3164 mm a year at the habitat, 2358 mm of it May to October. Wettest month September at 481 mm, driest December at 81 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 2543 mm to 4498 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.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 36 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 13, the highest 90th-percentile month 39).

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.

Warmth and air Cold floor 7.1 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 7.1 °C, the absolute minimum 2.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 10.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells 4.2 °C to 14.7 °C), warmest day 27.5 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 7.1 °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.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 64 to 68% 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.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 17 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Jul; mean night from 11 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 3164 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 376 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 2.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 32.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°20°30°40°32.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)2.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0200400600800mm rainDLI 17–36RH 64–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 376 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C17 / 11–2018 / 13–2120 / 15–2323 / 18–2525 / 19–2727 / 21–2928 / 22–3027 / 21–3026 / 20–2824 / 18–2621 / 16–2418 / 12–21
Night °C11 / 4–1512 / 6–1514 / 8–1717 / 10–2020 / 13–2321 / 14–2522 / 14–2622 / 14–2521 / 14–2419 / 12–2216 / 9–1912 / 5–16
Rain mm88 / 43–237156 / 66–274170 / 78–232203 / 116–268338 / 253–489442 / 319–644414 / 259–686459 / 317–730481 / 334–628224 / 82–520108 / 43–38781 / 41–254
DLI18 / 13–2320 / 15–2526 / 21–3130 / 26–3431 / 28–3433 / 30–3436 / 34–3933 / 30–3529 / 27–3125 / 22–2920 / 16–2417 / 13–22
RH %65 / 60–7466 / 62–7466 / 62–7266 / 63–7266 / 64–7167 / 63–7066 / 64–6968 / 65–7068 / 65–7167 / 63–7265 / 61–7264 / 60–73

Each figure is the median across the 376 grid cells holding the 1295 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1302:6026 (24.875, 121.325). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 2.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 7.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.6 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 376 distinct grid cells holding the 1295 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1302:6026 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 25.00_121.250, lapse-corrected +29 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 258 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 every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeNansei-shoto, Taiwan
Kew's description“perennial or rhizomatous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker24.093, 121.031 · in the densest population, 1233 records (92% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1338 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 155 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 83 km away. 38 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 43 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1338 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Tricyrtis formosanaTricyrtis formosanaTricyrtis formosanaTricyrtis formosanaTricyrtis formosanaTricyrtis formosanaTricyrtis formosanaTricyrtis formosana

Photographs: 黃美滿, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Cheng-Te Hsu, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (3); dianne_and_gordon_purdie, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF; Heng Chian Li, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (2); 黃 伊君, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF.

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Tricyrtis formosana, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

The first isolation of C-glycosylanthocyanin from the flowers of Tricyrtis formosana
Norio Saitô, Fumi Tatsuzawa, K. Miyoshi, Atsushi Shigihara (2003) · Tetrahedron Letters
Diacylated 8-C-Glucosylcyanidin 3-Glucoside from the Flowers of Tricyrtis formosana
Fumi Tatsuzawa, Norio Saitô, K. Miyoshi, Koichi Shinoda (2004) · Chemical and Pharmaceutical Bulletin
Double migration of the endangered Tricyrtis formosana (Liliaceae) in Japan
Kaori Tsunenari, Takuro Ito, Masatsugu Yokota, Mayu Shibabayashi (2024) · Scientific Reports
Controlled Freezing of Herbaceous Perennials
Leonard P. Perry, Todd A. Herrick (1995) · HortScience
Polyploids and aneuploids in Tricyrtis formosana
Y. Sinotô, Dyûhei Satô (1942) · The Japanese Journal of Genetics
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Tricyrtis 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 22 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.