Colchicum lusitanum, Condeixa-a-Nova, 3150, Portugal

Colchicum lusitanum Brot.

Portuguese colchicum

Climate known 56 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex

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

Colchicum lusitanum is a species of flowering plant in the family Colchicaceae, native to southwest Europe and northwestern Africa.

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

About the genus · Colchicum

Colchicum is a genus of perennial flowering plants containing around 160 species which grow from bulb-like corms. It is a member of the botanical family Colchicaceae, and is native to West Asia, Europe, parts of the Mediterranean coast, down the East African coast to South Africa and the Western Cape. In this genus, the ovary of the flower is underground. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family

Colchicaceae

Described by

Brot.

Native to

Baleares, Portugal, Spain +4

Wild records

734 in range· 120 open

At a glance

Warmest month

27°C

Jul, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

927mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Nov 119 mm (CHELSA)

Light

10–44DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Colchicum, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a winter growing season, September to February and April in the northern hemisphere (September to February and April at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 927 mm a year, wettest November at 119 mm, driest July at 35 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 10 to 44 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.6 °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 Colchicum algeriense Batt.; Colchicum autumnale subsp. algeriense Batt.; Colchicum autumnale var. algeriense (Batt.) Batt. & Trab.; Colchicum autumnale var. castrovillarense N.Terracc.; Colchicum autumnale var. fritillatum Samp. and 6 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Colchicum, 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 winter growing season, September to February and April in the northern hemisphere (September to February and April at the habitat, northern).

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 (651 mm of 927 mm) falls in September to February and April, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 10.0 °C against a yearly mean of 13.3 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: March to August and 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 927 mm a year, wettest November at 119 mm, driest July at 35 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

927 mm a year at the habitat, 651 mm of it September to February and April. Wettest month November at 119 mm, driest July at 35 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 630 mm to 1290 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: 10 to 44 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 10 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 8, the highest 90th-percentile month 51).

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 -3.6 °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 -3.6 °C, the absolute minimum -14.1 °C, about 33 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 0.6 °C in January (across the envelope cells -3.4 °C to 7.8 °C), warmest day 27.1 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.6 °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: 54 to 64% 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 518 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	8 / 4–14	10 / 5–15	13 / 8–18	16 / 11–19	20 / 16–23	24 / 19–28	27 / 22–32	27 / 22–31	23 / 19–27	18 / 14–22	13 / 9–18	9 / 5–15
Night °C	1 / -3–8	1 / -4–8	4 / -1–10	6 / 1–11	10 / 5–14	14 / 9–17	17 / 12–20	17 / 12–20	14 / 9–18	10 / 6–15	5 / 1–12	2 / -2–9
Rain mm	76 / 51–123	71 / 46–108	69 / 49–98	85 / 60–118	71 / 38–106	54 / 11–97	35 / 2–62	47 / 5–82	80 / 30–119	104 / 68–145	119 / 78–165	116 / 72–177
DLI	12 / 10–17	18 / 16–23	26 / 24–32	33 / 30–39	39 / 37–45	43 / 41–50	44 / 42–51	39 / 36–45	29 / 26–36	20 / 17–25	13 / 11–18	10 / 8–14
RH %	62 / 59–65	61 / 58–63	60 / 56–62	60 / 56–62	58 / 54–62	57 / 51–61	54 / 47–60	55 / 49–61	59 / 52–61	62 / 57–64	63 / 60–66	64 / 60–66

Each figure is the median across the 518 grid cells holding the 718 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 941:3543 (42.925, -2.825). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -14.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 31.2 °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 518 distinct grid cells holding the 718 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 941:3543 (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 43.00_-3.125, lapse-corrected +136 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 704 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.

NativeBaleares, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia

Kew's description“tuberous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker43.736, 11.316 · in the densest population, 271 records (37% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 734 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 120 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 82 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 16 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 734 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) zebedeugalinha, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Mehdi Chetibi, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) dhfischer, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (2).

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

Revisione Citosistematica del GenereColchicum.I:C. AutumnaleL.,C. LusitanumBrot. EC. NeapolitanumTen.

Francesco D’Amato (1955) · Caryologia

Notas de florística - X

José Vicente Cordeiro Malato-Beliz, Jorge Augusto de Oliveira Guerra (1977) · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas)

Colchicum gramineum (Cav.) J.C. Manning & Vinn. Colchicum lusitanum Brot. Colochicaceae

Imane Ouasti, Rainer W. Bussmann, Mostafa Elachouri (2023) · Ethnobotany of mountain regions

Occurrence Download