Species
+

Anigozanthos rufus Labill.

Red Kangaroo Paw, kangaroo paw, red kangaroo-paw

Climate known 65 photographs
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

Anigozanthos rufus is a grass-like evergreen perennial plant native to the southern coasts of Western Australia. Common names include red kangaroo paw, crimson kangaroo paw, and backdraft.

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

About the genus · Anigozanthos

Anigozanthos is a genus of plant found naturally in the Southwestern Australia biogeographic region, belonging to the bloodwort family Haemodoraceae. The 11 species and their subspecies are commonly known as kangaroo paw or wallaby paw, depending on their size, and the shape and colour of their flowers. A further species, previously identified as Anigozanthos fuliginosus, was separated to a monotypic genus as Macropidia fuliginosa. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Haemodoraceae
Described by
Labill.
Native to
Western Australia
Wild records
263 in range· 167 open

At a glance

Warmest month
25°C
Feb, mean day; nights 16 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
510mm/yr
10 wet months · peak Jul 65 mm (CHELSA)
Light
15–47DLI
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 winter growing season, October to April in the northern hemisphere (April to October at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 510 mm a year, wettest July at 65 mm, driest February at 21 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 47 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 4.7 °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 Anigozanthos tyrianthinus Hook.; Schwaegrichenia rufa (Labill.) Spreng.

Cultivation

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

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

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (368 mm of 510 mm) falls in April to October, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 13.9 °C against a yearly mean of 15.9 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: October 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 510 mm a year, wettest July at 65 mm, driest February at 21 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

510 mm a year at the habitat, 368 mm of it April to October. Wettest month July at 65 mm, driest February at 21 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 417 mm to 727 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: 15 to 47 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 47 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 14, the highest 90th-percentile month 48).

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 4.7 °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 4.7 °C, the absolute minimum 2.1 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 8.4 °C in August (across the envelope cells 5.8 °C to 10.7 °C), warmest day 25.1 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 4.7 °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: 57 to 58% 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 15 °C in Jul to 25 °C in Feb; mean night from 8 °C in Aug to 16 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jul to Sep, is the three months around the coldest night. 510 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 156 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 2.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 38.8 °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°38.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)2.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125mm rainDLI 15–47RH 57–58 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 156 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 °C25 / 22–2825 / 23–2824 / 22–2621 / 20–2319 / 18–2016 / 15–1715 / 14–1616 / 14–1718 / 16–1919 / 18–2122 / 19–2423 / 21–26
Night °C16 / 14–1716 / 14–1715 / 13–1713 / 11–1511 / 9–1410 / 7–129 / 6–118 / 6–1110 / 7–1211 / 8–1313 / 11–1414 / 12–16
Rain mm33 / 20–3921 / 16–2633 / 28–4336 / 29–4657 / 43–8061 / 41–10065 / 44–10560 / 43–9651 / 36–7738 / 31–5234 / 29–4121 / 17–28
DLI46 / 44–4841 / 39–4233 / 31–3424 / 23–2518 / 16–1815 / 14–1616 / 15–1621 / 19–2129 / 26–2937 / 33–3843 / 40–4447 / 44–48
RH %58 / 54–5958 / 55–5958 / 56–5958 / 57–6058 / 57–6058 / 57–6258 / 57–6257 / 56–6158 / 56–6157 / 55–6057 / 55–5957 / 54–59

Each figure is the median across the 156 grid cells holding the 235 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 2484:5986 (-34.225, 119.325). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 2.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 4.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.8 °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 156 distinct grid cells holding the 235 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2484:5986 (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 -34.00_119.375, lapse-corrected -92 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 75 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.
NativeWestern Australia
Kew's description“perennial” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-33.879, 120.22 · in the densest population, 140 records (53% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 263 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 167 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 20 km away. 5 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 28 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 263 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Anigozanthos rufusAnigozanthos rufusAnigozanthos rufusAnigozanthos rufusAnigozanthos rufusAnigozanthos rufusAnigozanthos rufusAnigozanthos rufus

Photographs: (c) Belinda Forbes, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Thomas Mesaglio, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Kym Nicolson, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Em Lamond, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Rosario Douglas, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

Current issues in plant cryopreservation and importance for ex situ conservation of threatened Australian native species
Robyn Streczynski, Hamish A. Clark, Lily M. Whelehan, Sze-Tieng Ang (2019) · Australian Journal of Botany
Cryopreservation of threatened native Australian species—what have we learned and where to from here?
Anja Kaczmarczyk, Shane R. Turner, Eric Bunn, Ricardo L. Mancera (2010) · In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology - Plant
Colouring Matters of Australian Plants. XVIII. Constituents of Anigozanthos rufus
R. G. Cooke, Reena Thomas (1975) · Australian Journal of Chemistry
Musanolones: Four 9-phenylphenalenones from rhizomes of Musa acuminata
Javier G. Luis, Winston Quiñones, Fernando Echeverri, Teresa A. Grillo (1996) · Phytochemistry
A phytoalexin from roots of Musa acuminata var. pisang sipulu
Richard H. Binks, Jennifer R. Greenham, Javier G. Luis, S. R. Gowen (1997) · Phytochemistry
Correlation between Phenylphenalenone Phytoalexins and Phytopathological Properties in Musa and the Role of a Dihydrophenylphenalene Triol
Felipe Otálvaro, Fernando Echeverri, Winston Quiñones, Fernando Torres (2002) · Molecules
Botanical illustration and photography: a southern hemisphere perspective
Ellen J. Hickman, Colin J. Yates, Stephen D. Hopper (2017) · Australian Systematic Botany
Contributions to Western Australian orchidology: 1. History of early collections, taxonomic concepts and key to genera
Stephen D. Hopper, Andy Brown (2001) · Nuytsia—The journal of the Western Australian Herbarium
Bacterial endophyte in Macropidia fuliginosa: its localisation and eradication from in vitro cultured basal-stem callus
Junji Miyazaki, Beng H. Tan, Stephen G. Errington, John J. S. Kuo (2011) · Australian Journal of Botany

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 Anigozanthos 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (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 24 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.