Calliandra eriophylla, , Arizona, United States

Calliandra eriophylla Benth.

Haxz iztim, fairy-duster, fairyduster, false mesquite

Climate known 48 photographs

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

Calliandra eriophylla, commonly known as fairy duster, is a low spreading shrub which is native to deserts and arid grasslands in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.

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

About the genus · Calliandra

Calliandra is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae, in the mimosoid clade of the subfamily Caesalpinioideae. It contains about 140 species that are native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas.

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

Family

Fabaceae

Described by

Benth.

Native to

Arizona, California, Nevada +8

Wild records

1749 in range· 666 open

At a glance

Warmest month

34°C

Jun, mean day; nights 20 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

376mm/yr

7 wet months · peak Jul 74 mm (CHELSA)

Light

22–53DLI

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 summer growing season, December to January and July to October in the northern hemisphere (December to January and July to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 376 mm a year, wettest July at 74 mm, driest May at 8 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 22 to 53 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -2.5 °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 Anneslia eriophylla (Benth.) Britton; Caiandra eriophylla Benth.; Calliandra chamaedrys A.Gray; Calliandra conferta A.Gray; Feuilleea eriophylla (Benth.) Kuntze.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, December to January and July to October in the northern hemisphere (December to January and July 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 (277 mm of 376 mm) falls in December to January and July to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 20.0 °C against a yearly mean of 19.4 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: January to April and June to July.

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 376 mm a year, wettest July at 74 mm, driest May at 8 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

376 mm a year at the habitat, 277 mm of it December to January and July to October. Wettest month July at 74 mm, driest May at 8 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 241 mm to 716 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: 22 to 53 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 22 to 53 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 19, the highest 90th-percentile month 54).

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 -2.5 °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 -2.5 °C, the absolute minimum -8.0 °C, about 14 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 4.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells 1.0 °C to 9.8 °C), warmest day 33.5 °C in June (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -2.5 °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: 38 to 51% 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 778 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	18 / 14–22	19 / 16–24	23 / 19–27	27 / 23–30	30 / 26–34	34 / 26–38	33 / 24–39	32 / 24–38	30 / 23–35	26 / 22–30	22 / 18–25	17 / 14–23
Night °C	5 / 1–10	6 / 2–11	8 / 4–13	11 / 8–16	15 / 12–19	20 / 14–23	22 / 14–26	21 / 14–26	18 / 13–23	13 / 10–17	8 / 5–13	5 / 1–11
Rain mm	29 / 13–47	26 / 9–46	23 / 6–45	13 / 5–29	8 / 3–60	10 / 2–103	74 / 25–131	72 / 37–121	45 / 21–137	28 / 16–61	19 / 9–31	29 / 8–45
DLI	24 / 21–31	30 / 27–37	39 / 37–44	47 / 43–49	52 / 43–53	53 / 41–54	46 / 39–49	42 / 39–44	39 / 34–40	33 / 30–35	26 / 24–32	22 / 19–29
RH %	50 / 46–58	48 / 44–57	45 / 41–55	40 / 37–56	38 / 34–58	38 / 33–62	47 / 41–63	51 / 44–63	47 / 42–65	46 / 41–62	46 / 43–59	50 / 46–58

Each figure is the median across the 778 grid cells holding the 1634 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 1305:1600 (24.725, -99.975). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -8.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -2.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.1 °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 778 distinct grid cells holding the 1634 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1305:1600 (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 24.50_-100.000, lapse-corrected +269 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1847 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.

NativeArizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast

Kew's description“subshrub or shrub” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker33.686, -111.739 · in the densest population, 1123 records (64% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1749 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 666 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 167 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 115 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 1749 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Andrew Tree, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) CK2AZ, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Mike Ostrowski, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); (c) Elliot Kulakow, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Seth G. Breeding, 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 Calliandra eriophylla, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Ecological Relationships between Mule Deer and White‐Tailed Deer in Southeastern Arizona

Robert G. Anthony, Norman S. Smith (1977) · Ecological Monographs

Vicinally unsaturated hydroxy acids in seed oils

L. J. Morris, R. T. Holman, Krister Fontell (1960) · Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society

Habitat Components for Desert Bighorn Sheep in the Harquahala Mountains, Arizona

Paul R. Krausman, Bruce D. Leopold (1986) · Journal of Wildlife Management

Chemical and Digestibility Characteristics of Some Woody Species Browsed by Goats in Central Mexico

Juan Manuel Pinos‐Rodríguez, Juan Rogelio Aguirre‐Rivera, Miguel Mellado, Juan Carlos García-López (2007) · Journal of Applied Animal Research

Respuestas de los atributos fotosintéticos y estequiométricos a la aridez en las especies y tipos funcionales de dos comunidades del desierto sonorense

Delia Marina Acuña-Acosta, Alejandro E. Castellanos, José Manuel Llano-Sotelo, José Raúl Romo-León (2021) · Botanical Sciences

TWO NOVEL PENTACYCLIC TRITERPENES FROM CALLIANDRA ERIOPHYLLA (BENTH) (LEGUMINOSAE)

Edet M. Anam (1999) · Indian Journal of Chemistry Section B-organic Chemistry Including Medicinal Chemistry

Mountain sheep microsite habitat characteristics in western Arizona.

Richard Carl Etchberger (1993) · UA Campus Repository (The University of Arizona)

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