Species
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Aeonium gorgoneum J.A.Schmidt

Cape Verde Tree Houseleek

Climate known 46 photographs Cactus or succulent
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

Aeonium gorgoneum is a species of flowering plant in the family Crassulaceae. The species is endemic to Cape Verde. It was first described by Johann Anton Schmidt in 1852. Its local name is saião. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Aeonium gorgoneum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Aeonium

Aeonium, the tree houseleeks, is a genus of about 35 species of succulent, subtropical plants of the family Crassulaceae. Many species are popular in horticulture. The genus name comes from the ancient Greek αἰώνιος / aiōnios (ageless). More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Aeonium”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Crassulaceae
Described by
J.A.Schmidt
Native to
Cape Verde
Wild records
31 in range· 5 open

At a glance

Warmest month
25°C
Sep, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
189mm/yr
2 wet months · peak Sep 72 mm (CHELSA)
Light
26–46DLI
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 cactus or succulent by the genus Aeonium, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, August to October in the northern hemisphere (August to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 189 mm a year, wettest September at 72 mm, driest May at 1 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 46 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 18.0 °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 Aeonium webbii Bolle; Sempervivum gorgoneum (Schmidt) Schmidt; Sempervivum gorgoneum (Schmidt) Schmidt ex Cout.; Sempervivum webbii Schenck.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Aeonium, which is reliably 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, August to October in the northern hemisphere (August 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 (137 mm of 189 mm) falls in August to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 24.4 °C against a yearly mean of 22.2 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: February 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 189 mm a year, wettest September at 72 mm, driest May at 1 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

189 mm a year at the habitat, 137 mm of it August to October. Wettest month September at 72 mm, driest May at 1 mm; 5 months under 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 153 mm to 217 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: 26 to 46 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 46 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 24, the highest 90th-percentile month 46).

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 18.0 °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 18.0 °C, the absolute minimum 16.9 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 27.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 19.5 °C in February (across the envelope cells 18.9 °C to 20.1 °C), warmest day 25.1 °C in September (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 18.0 °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: 61 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 20 °C in Feb to 25 °C in Sep; mean night from 20 °C in Feb to 24 °C in Sep. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest night. 189 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 4 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 16.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 27.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.15°20°25°30°27.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)16.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100mm rainDLI 26–46RH 61–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 4 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 °C21 / 20–2120 / 20–2121 / 20–2121 / 21–2222 / 22–2323 / 23–2424 / 24–2525 / 25–2525 / 25–2625 / 24–2523 / 22–2422 / 21–23
Night °C20 / 19–2020 / 19–2020 / 19–2021 / 20–2121 / 21–2222 / 22–2423 / 23–2424 / 24–2424 / 24–2524 / 23–2423 / 22–2421 / 20–22
Rain mm7 / 5–94 / 3–52 / 1–22 / 1–21111 / 9–1341 / 36–4472 / 61–8124 / 19–2913 / 9–1711 / 7–14
DLI28 / 26–3134 / 32–3641 / 39–4243 / 43–4446 / 45–4645 / 44–4642 / 41–4240 / 40–4138 / 38–3935 / 33–3730 / 28–3226 / 24–29
RH %61 / 56–6261 / 55–6262 / 55–6363 / 57–6564 / 56–6665 / 57–6767 / 63–7068 / 65–7067 / 64–7065 / 60–6762 / 57–6461 / 58–63

Each figure is the median across the 4 grid cells holding the 6 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 1462:3101 (16.875, -24.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 16.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 18.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 27.6 °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 4 distinct grid cells holding the 6 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1462:3101 (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 17.00_-25.000, lapse-corrected +102 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 201 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.
NativeCape Verde
Kew's description“succulent subshrub or shrub” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker17.025, -25.032 · in the densest population, 31 records (100% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 31 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 5 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 15 km away. 19 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 25 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 31 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Aeonium gorgoneumAeonium gorgoneumAeonium gorgoneumAeonium gorgoneumAeonium gorgoneumAeonium gorgoneumAeonium gorgoneumAeonium gorgoneum

Photographs: (c) Jacek Pietruszewski, some rights reserved (CC BY) (8).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons 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 Aeonium gorgoneum, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Flora of Macaronesia. Checklist of vascular plants. 4. revised edition
Aslak Kappel Hansen, P. Sunding (1993) · Sommerfeltia
The Role of Climate and Topography in Shaping the Diversity of Plant Communities in Cabo Verde Islands
Carlos Neto, José Carlos Costa, Albano Figueiredo, Jorge Capelo (2020) · Diversity
Patterns of genetic diversity in three plant lineages endemic to the Cape Verde Islands
María M. Romeiras, Filipa Monteiro, María Cristina Duarte, Hanno Schaefer (2015) · AoB Plants
Diversity of Useful Plants in Cabo Verde Islands: A Biogeographic and Conservation Perspective
María Cristina Duarte, Isildo Gomes, Sílvia Catarino, Miguel Brilhante (2022) · Plants
Diversification of Aeonium Species Across Macaronesian Archipelagos: Correlations Between Genome-Size Variation and Their Conservation Status
Miguel Brilhante, Guilherme Roxo, Sílvia Catarino, Patrícia dos Santos (2021) · Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Die Rolle von Fels-Habitaten für Nischenkonstanz und als Refugien für Pflanzen: drei Fallstudien
Ulrich Deil (2019) · Digitale Bibliothek Braunschweig (Verbundzentrale Göttingen (VZG))
Aeonium gorgoneum: Catarino, S., Duarte, M.C. & Romeiras, M.M.
IUCN (2014) · IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
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 Aeonium 35 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (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 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried 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 2026-09-20; 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.