55 photographs › At a glance
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About the genus · Tropaeolum
Tropaeolum, commonly known as nasturtium, is a genus of roughly 80 species of annual and perennial herbaceous flowering plants. It was named by Carl Linnaeus in his book Species Plantarum and is the only genus in the family Tropaeolaceae. The nasturtiums received their common name because they produce an oil similar to that of watercress.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Tropaeolum", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Seasons
The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (724 mm of 924 mm) falls in May to August, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 9.1 °C against a yearly mean of 12.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: November to February.
Rain
924 mm in the median year at the habitat, 724 mm of it May to August. Wettest month June at 216 mm, driest month January at 5 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 633 mm to 2,357 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 939 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 924 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: 13 to 56 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 57).
Warmth and air
Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 3.4 °C in July (across the grid cells of the range 0.0 °C to 7.8 °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: none read. The nearest figure is 3.4 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, July, 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.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 54 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. 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, southern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 12 °C in Jul to 24 °C in Jan and Feb; mean nightly low from 3 °C in Jul to 13 °C in Jan and Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low. 924 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 97 habitat cells. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.
Figures by month
| Figure | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 24 / 20–28 | 24 / 20–28 | 22 / 19–26 | 19 / 16–22 | 15 / 13–18 | 13 / 10–16 | 12 / 9–15 | 13 / 10–16 | 15 / 12–18 | 17 / 14–21 | 20 / 16–24 | 23 / 18–27 |
| Night °C | 13 / 10–15 | 13 / 10–15 | 12 / 8–14 | 9 / 6–11 | 7 / 3–10 | 5 / 1–9 | 3 / 0–8 | 4 / 1–8 | 6 / 2–9 | 8 / 3–10 | 10 / 6–12 | 12 / 8–14 |
| Rain mm | 5 / 1–39 | 6 / 2–41 | 16 / 8–65 | 50 / 26–142 | 179 / 114–403 | 216 / 147–492 | 186 / 151–387 | 143 / 98–338 | 67 / 44–174 | 31 / 18–112 | 17 / 10–73 | 8 / 2–47 |
| DLI | 56 / 55–57 | 50 / 48–51 | 39 / 37–42 | 27 / 24–30 | 17 / 15–20 | 13 / 11–16 | 15 / 13–19 | 21 / 19–25 | 31 / 29–34 | 41 / 39–44 | 51 / 50–53 | 56 / 55–57 |
| RH % | 54 / 51–63 | 54 / 52–64 | 56 / 52–65 | 58 / 50–66 | 60 / 51–67 | 61 / 52–68 | 61 / 50–67 | 61 / 51–66 | 62 / 53–65 | 59 / 55–64 | 57 / 53–63 | 55 / 52–63 |
The daily extremes were not used: the correction for elevation, -1326 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 -8.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 1.4 °C.
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Álvaro Ibaceta R., some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Bruno Avilez, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Hector Montero, some rights reserved (CC BY).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Myrceugenia lanceolata Myrtaceae Photo: CC BY, Cochi González
Gavilea longibracteata Long-Bracted Gavilea Photo: CC0, author not stated
Retanilla ephedra Rhamnaceae Photo: CC BY, Álvaro Ibaceta R.
Solanum crispum Chilean nightshade Photo: CC0, author not stated
Salpiglossis sinuata Painted tongue Photo: CC BY, Cesar Ormazabal
Peumus boldus Boldo Photo: CC0, author not statedOther Tropaeolum 16 in the reference
Tropaeolum austropurpureum Tropaeolaceae Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Lavandero
Tropaeolum azureum Blue nasturtium Photo: CC BY, Constanza Vargas Villegas
Tropaeolum brachyceras Tropaeolaceae Photo: CC BY, Max Alejandro
Tropaeolum hookerianum Tropaeolaceae Photo: CC BY, Víctor Sarabia Sánchez
Tropaeolum majus Indian cress Photo: CC BY, Antonio W. Salas
Tropaeolum minus Dwarf nasturtium Photo: CC BY, Luis Fer JP
Tropaeolum peltophorum Shield nasturtium Photo: CC0, Eric Haavind-Berman
Tropaeolum pendulum Tropaeolaceae Photo: CC BY, Daniel Mesa
Tropaeolum pentaphyllum Ladies' Legs Photo: CC BY, Felipe Horton
Tropaeolum peregrinum Canary-creeper Photo: CC BY-SA, Noemi Guerrero
Tropaeolum polyphyllum Wreath nasturtium Photo: CC BY, Víctor Sarabia Sánchez
Tropaeolum seemannii Tropaeolaceae Photo: CC BY, Thomaz Ricardo Favreto Sinani all 17 ›Names & registers
The record
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 answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -34.50_-70.625, lapse-corrected -1326 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: the correction for elevation, -1326 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 shownwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22inat.photos.wild answeredasked 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 2026-10-22inat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22none of the photographs on this page is credited to GBIF: those shown are other sources', and GBIF's were the same photographs or were set aside by the photograph rulesopenalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery 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 15 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.