Species
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Uncarina peltata (Baker) Stapf

Pedaliaceae

Climate known 8 photographs
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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

Uncarina peltata, also known as farehitse or mousetrap tree, is a sesame relative native to Madagascar.

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

About the genus · Uncarina

Uncarina, also called succulent sesame, mousetrap plant, or local names include farehitra or farehitsy, is a genus of semi-succulent flowering plants in the Pedaliaceae found in Madagascar. As most species within the genus are inhabitants of dry, semi-arid or seasonally-dry regions, many mature into water-storing pachycauls, or "caudiciformes"—a common colloquial term to describe plants that normally inhabit drier climates and develop a large, woody base, or "foot", known as a caudex. In these species, a plant's lower half gradually accumulates and stores water ; over time, the caudex changes shape, swelling to an often impressive size, as it adds to its own moisture "reservoir" for future periods of drought.

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

Family
Pedaliaceae
Described by
(Baker) Stapf
Native to
Madagascar
Wild records
121 in range· 69 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Nov, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1424mm/yr
7 wet months · peak Jan 393 mm (CHELSA)
Light
31–44DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, December to February at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.4 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1424 mm a year, wettest January at 393 mm, driest September at 7 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 44 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 16.1 °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 Harpagophytum peltatum Baker; Uncaria peltata (Baker) Kuntze.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, December to February at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.4 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

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

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (1027 mm of 1424 mm) falls in December to February. The temperature curve is flat, 3.4 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; with a flat temperature curve there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 1424 mm a year, wettest January at 393 mm, driest September at 7 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1424 mm a year at the habitat, 1027 mm of it December to February. Wettest month January at 393 mm, driest September at 7 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1023 mm to 1902 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern 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: 31 to 44 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 44 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 29, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

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 16.1 °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 16.1 °C, the absolute minimum 12.9 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 19.0 °C in July (across the envelope cells 17.3 °C to 21.3 °C), warmest day 31.0 °C in November (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 16.1 °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: 55 to 67% 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 28 °C in Jul to 31 °C in Nov; mean night from 19 °C in Jul to 23 °C in Jan. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 1424 mm of rain a year, most in Jan. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 77 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 12.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.4 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°35°40°35.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)12.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 31–44RH 55–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 77 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 °C30 / 28–3130 / 28–3030 / 28–3131 / 28–3230 / 28–3229 / 27–3028 / 26–3028 / 26–3129 / 27–3330 / 28–3431 / 29–3431 / 29–32
Night °C23 / 22–2523 / 22–2523 / 22–2523 / 22–2521 / 20–2420 / 18–2219 / 17–2119 / 18–2120 / 19–2221 / 20–2323 / 21–2423 / 22–25
Rain mm393 / 258–512381 / 262–482193 / 149–28363 / 47–9616 / 9–278 / 0–218 / 1–2310 / 2–257 / 4–1526 / 17–4066 / 35–138253 / 152–333
DLI35 / 33–3734 / 33–3637 / 36–3836 / 35–3833 / 32–3431 / 29–3232 / 30–3336 / 34–3741 / 39–4244 / 43–4544 / 43–4540 / 38–41
RH %67 / 65–7067 / 66–7165 / 62–6961 / 56–6758 / 53–6456 / 51–6255 / 50–6156 / 49–6157 / 49–6258 / 50–6359 / 54–6463 / 61–67

Each figure is the median across the 77 grid cells holding the 119 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 2059:4591 (-12.975, 49.575). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 12.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 16.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.4 °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 77 distinct grid cells holding the 119 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2059:4591 (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 -13.00_49.375, lapse-corrected +6 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 153 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.
NativeMadagascar
Kew's description“desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-12.577, 49.454 · in the densest population, 72 records (60% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 121 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 69 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 26 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 2 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 121 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Uncarina peltataUncarina peltataUncarina peltataUncarina peltataUncarina peltataUncarina peltataUncarina peltata

Photographs: (c) Stuart Cable, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); Stuart Cable, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (4).

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 Uncarina peltata, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.Org User (2023) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.Org User (2023) · 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 Uncarina 13 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 answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
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 answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
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 6 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.