Species
+

Commelina communis L.

Asian Dayflower, Asiatic Dayflower, Common Dayflower, Dayflower

Climate known 78 photographs Tropical foliage plant
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

Commelina communis the Asiatic dayflower, is an herbaceous annual plant in the dayflower family. It gets its name because the blooms last for only one day. It is native throughout much of East Asia and northern parts of Southeast Asia. In China, the plant is known as yazhicao, roughly translating to "duckfoot herb", while in Japan it is known as tsuyukusa , meaning "dew herb". More on Wikipedia ›

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

About the genus · Commelina

Commelina is a genus of approximately 208 species commonly called dayflowers due to the short lives of their flowers, and less often known as widow's tears. It is by far the largest genus of its family, Commelinaceae. The Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus of the 18th century named the genus after the two Dutch botanists Jan Commelijn and his nephew Caspar, each representing one of the showy petals of Commelina communis.

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

Family
Commelinaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Buryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk +22
Wild records
598 in range· 249 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Aug, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1383mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 253 mm (CHELSA)
Light
15–36DLI
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 tropical foliage plant by Commelinaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (April to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1383 mm a year, wettest July at 253 mm, driest December at 35 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the -0.3 °C habitat night).
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 Commelina communis f. alba TiChen; Commelina communis f. aureostriata MacKeever; Commelina vulgaris DC.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by Commelinaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (April to September 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 (1047 mm of 1383 mm) falls in April to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 20.5 °C against a yearly mean of 13.6 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to March.

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 1383 mm a year, wettest July at 253 mm, driest December at 35 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1383 mm a year at the habitat, 1047 mm of it April to September. Wettest month July at 253 mm, driest December at 35 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 981 mm to 2223 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: 15 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 36 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 12, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

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 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the -0.3 °C habitat night).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -0.3 °C, the absolute minimum -4.0 °C, about 5 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -2.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells -11.5 °C to 3.7 °C), warmest day 27.9 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12 °C. The habitat figure, the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER), is -0.3 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a tropical foliage plant (grouped by Commelinaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant) is 12 °C, which is higher, and the floor rule takes the higher.

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, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 67% 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 5 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Aug; mean night from -2 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1383 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 486 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -4.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 31.7 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost31.7° 99th-percentile day (undated)-4.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 15–36RH 56–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 486 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 °C5 / -2–106 / 0–1210 / 4–1617 / 11–2221 / 16–2624 / 20–2827 / 23–3128 / 24–3124 / 20–2719 / 15–2213 / 7–177 / 1–12
Night °C-2 / -12–4-1 / -9–52 / -4–88 / 2–1313 / 8–1817 / 13–2121 / 17–2422 / 18–2418 / 13–2112 / 7–166 / -1–110 / -7–6
Rain mm40 / 13–9349 / 16–11779 / 32–169101 / 55–193124 / 87–239170 / 115–294253 / 148–399223 / 136–350176 / 96–27074 / 46–19459 / 30–11835 / 15–77
DLI17 / 14–1922 / 18–2428 / 22–3034 / 27–3636 / 30–3734 / 28–3631 / 28–3531 / 27–3426 / 23–2823 / 19–2517 / 14–1915 / 12–18
RH %57 / 53–6356 / 53–6457 / 54–6358 / 54–6361 / 56–6564 / 59–6867 / 62–7166 / 62–6963 / 60–6659 / 56–6358 / 55–6257 / 54–62

Each figure is the median across the 486 grid cells holding the 574 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 1064:6340 (36.775, 137.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -4.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -0.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 31.7 °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 486 distinct grid cells holding the 574 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1064:6340 (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 37.00_136.875, lapse-corrected -6 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 40 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.
NativeBuryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk, Yakutskiya, Amur, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Kuril Is., Primorye, Sakhalin, China South-Central, Hainan, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam· introduced: Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, South European Russia, Ukraine, Altay, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Cyprus, Ontario, Québec, Oregon, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., Vermont, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, District of Columbia
Kew's description“annual” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker37.227, 127.003 · in the densest population, 281 records (47% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 598 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 249 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1078 km away. 1316 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 24 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 4° block of the 598 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Commelina communisCommelina communisCommelina communisCommelina communisCommelina communisCommelina communisCommelina communisCommelina communis

Photographs: (c) Nathan Aaron, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) skitterbug, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Emad Tahaei, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Dmitriy Bochkov, some rights reserved (CC BY) (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 Commelina communis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Determination of the Pore Size of Cell Walls of Living Plant Cells
Nicholas C. Carpita, Dario C. Sabularse, David Montezinos, Deborah P. Delmer (1979) · Science
Heavy metal toxicity: cadmium permeates through calcium channels and disturbs the plant water status
Laetitia Perfus‐Barbeoch, Nathalie Leonhardt, Alain Vavasseur, Cyrille Forestier (2002) · The Plant Journal
Control of Stomatal Behaviour by Abscisic Acid which Apparently Originates in the Roots
Jianhua Zhang, Ulrich Schurr, W. J. Davies (1987) · Journal of Experimental Botany
Stimulus-Induced Oscillations in Guard Cell Cytosolic Free Calcium.
Martin R. McAinsh, AAR. Webb, Jane Taylor, Alistair M. Hetherington (1995) · The Plant Cell
Role of Calcium in Signal Transduction of Commelina Guard Cells.
Simon Gilroy, Mark D. Fricker, Nick D. Read, Anthony Trewavas (1991) · The Plant Cell
Stomatal Response to Abscisic Acid Is a Function of Current Plant Water Status
François Tardieu, William Davies (1992) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
The Multisensory Guard Cell. Stomatal Responses to Blue Light and Abscisic Acid1
Sarah M. Assmann, Ken‐ichiro Shimazaki (1999) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Structural basis of blue-colour development in flower petals from Commelina communis
Tadao Hondo, Kumi Yoshida, Atsushi Nakagawa, Takatoshi Kawai (1992) · Nature
Carbon dioxide induces increases in guard cell cytosolic free calcium
Alex Webb, Martin R. McAinsh, Terry A. Mansfield, Alistair M. Hetherington (1996) · The Plant Journal
Increased Synthesis of ABA in Partially Dehydrated Root Tips and ABA Transport from Roots to Leaves
Jianhua Zhang, W. J. Davies (1987) · Journal of Experimental 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 Commelina 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 158 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.