Species
+

Clethra alnifolia L.

Coastal Sweet Pepperbush, Coastal Sweetpepperbush, Coastal sweetpepperbush, Pink-spire

Climate known 45 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

Clethra alnifolia, the coastal sweetpepperbush or summer sweet, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Clethra of the family Clethraceae, native to eastern North America from southern Nova Scotia and Maine south to northern Florida, and west to eastern Texas. It is a deciduous shrub which grows in wetlands, bogs and woodland streams.

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

About the genus · Clethra

Clethra is a genus of flowering shrubs or small trees erected as a genus by Linnaeus in 1753.

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

Family
Clethraceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Nova Scotia, Connecticut, Maine +19
Wild records
1761 in range· 468 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Jul, mean day; nights 19 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1255mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Mar 111 mm (CHELSA)
Light
11–39DLI
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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 9 months (March to April and June to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1255 mm a year, wettest March at 111 mm, driest February at 89 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 39 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -11.7 °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 Clethra alnifolia f. alnifolia; Clethra alnifolia f. paniculata (Aiton) Zabel, 1903; Clethra alnifolia f. paniculata (Sol.) Beissn.; Clethra alnifolia f. paniculata (Sol.) Schelle; Clethra alnifolia f. rosea Rehder and 16 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 9 months (March to April and June to December in the northern hemisphere).

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

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (973 mm of 1255 mm) takes 9 months, March to April and June to December. Mean temperature moves 23.3 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to June and September to October.

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 1255 mm a year, wettest March at 111 mm, driest February at 89 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1255 mm a year at the habitat, 973 mm of it March to April and June to December. Wettest month March at 111 mm, driest February at 89 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1145 mm to 1402 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: 11 to 39 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 39 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 10, the highest 90th-percentile month 41).

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 -11.7 °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 -11.7 °C, the absolute minimum -20.5 °C, about 84 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -3.8 °C in January (across the envelope cells -7.7 °C to 0.9 °C), warmest day 27.8 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -11.7 °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: 56 to 60% 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 3 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Jul; mean night from -4 °C in Jan to 19 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1255 mm of rain a year, most in Mar. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1038 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -20.5 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost29.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)-20.5° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 11–39RH 56–60 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1038 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 °C3 / 1–94 / 3–118 / 6–1514 / 11–2020 / 16–2525 / 21–2928 / 24–3127 / 24–3023 / 20–2616 / 15–2111 / 9–166 / 4–11
Night °C-4 / -8–1-3 / -6–21 / -2–55 / 3–1010 / 9–1516 / 14–2019 / 18–2219 / 17–2216 / 13–1910 / 7–135 / 2–8-1 / -4–3
Rain mm90 / 81–10489 / 74–103111 / 99–132109 / 88–124103 / 91–115107 / 96–124111 / 94–138109 / 92–135105 / 95–124106 / 88–124108 / 83–126107 / 90–121
DLI13 / 12–1619 / 18–2126 / 25–2832 / 31–3637 / 35–3939 / 38–4138 / 38–4034 / 33–3628 / 26–2921 / 19–2314 / 13–1711 / 10–14
RH %57 / 56–5956 / 55–5856 / 55–5856 / 55–5958 / 57–6159 / 58–6359 / 57–6360 / 59–6460 / 58–6259 / 57–6058 / 57–5958 / 56–59

Each figure is the median across the 1038 grid cells holding the 1679 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 961:2186 (41.925, -70.675). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -20.5 °C, 1st-percentile night -11.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.6 °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 1038 distinct grid cells holding the 1679 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 961:2186 (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 42.00_-70.625, lapse-corrected +25 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 38 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.
NativeNova Scotia, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia· introduced: Netherlands, Vermont
Kew's description“shrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker42.064, -71.162 · in the densest population, 1462 records (83% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1761 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 468 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 83 km away. 99 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 82 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 inside the densest 2° block of the 1761 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Clethra alnifoliaClethra alnifoliaClethra alnifoliaClethra alnifoliaClethra alnifoliaClethra alnifoliaClethra alnifoliaClethra alnifolia

Photographs: (c) NC Wetlands, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Sandy Wolkenberg, some rights reserved (CC BY) (6); (c) chrischalfant, 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 Clethra alnifolia, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

The Use of Water and Minerals by Evergreen and Deciduous Shrubs in Okefenokee Swamp
William H. Schlesinger, Brian F. Chabot (1977) · Botanical Gazette
Uptake and dissipation of neonicotinoid residues in nectar and foliage of systemically treated woody landscape plants
Bernadette Maria Mach, Svetlana Bondarenko, Daniel Potter (2017) · Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
A place in space,
Paul A. Keddy (2001) · American Journal of Botany
Elemental Composition of Epiphytic Lichens from Okefenokee Swamp
Robert W. Bosserman, Jane E. Hagner (1981) · The Bryologist
Comparing Insect Pollinator Visitation for Six Native Shrub Species and Their Cultivars
Jacob Gordon Ricker, Jessica D. Lubell, Mark H. Brand (2019) · HortScience
Plant functional traits of a shrub invader relative to sympatric native shrubs
Julie C. Zinnert, Sheri A. Shiflett, Jaclyn K. Vick, Donald R. Young (2013) · Ecosphere
Comparison of Perlite and Peat:perlite Rooting Media for Rooting Softwood Stem Cuttings in a Subirrigation System with Minimal Mist
Gregory J. Giroux, Brian K. Maynard, William A. Johnson (1999) · Journal of Environmental Horticulture
Bee Visitation on Flowers in Maine, United States, Reveals the Relative Attractiveness of Plants Through Space and Time: Part I
Alison C. Dibble, Francis A. Drummond, Lois Berg Stack (2020) · Environmental Entomology

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.

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 58 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.