Curio radicans, Min Water in the Klein Karoo: Min water in the Klein Karoo

no rights reserved · observed growing wild · 2012-03-13

Curio radicans (L.) P.V.Heath

Baboon Toes, Banana Vine, Creeping Berry, Necklace Plant

Climate known 55 photographs Cactus or succulent

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

Curio radicans, syn. Senecio radicans, is a succulent plant native to Southern Africa. A member of the family Asteraceae, the asters, this species is closely related to the common string of pearls and Curio hallianus. It has multiple tendrils of glossy, banana-shaped leaves. It is commonly known as string of bananas or fishhook senecio.

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

Family

Asteraceae

Described by

(L.) P.V.Heath

Native to

Cape Provinces, Lesotho, Namibia +3

Wild records

665 in range· 184 open

At a glance

Warmest month

29°C

Jan, mean day; nights 16 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

399mm/yr

10 wet months · peak Mar 42 mm (CHELSA)

Light

18–49DLI

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 cactus or succulent by the genus Curio, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (February and April to October in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 399 mm a year, wettest March at 42 mm, driest June at 24 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 18 to 49 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 1.2 °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 Cacalia radicans L.fil.; Kleinia adenocalyx (Dinter) Merxm.; Kleinia radicans (L.fil.) Haw.; Senecio adenocalyx Dinter; Senecio gonocladus (DC.) Sch.Bip. and 2 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Curio, 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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (February and April to October 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 (298 mm of 399 mm) takes 8 months, October to April and August. Mean temperature moves 10.6 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: February and April 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 399 mm a year, wettest March at 42 mm, driest June at 24 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

399 mm a year at the habitat, 298 mm of it October to April and August. Wettest month March at 42 mm, driest June at 24 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 258 mm to 618 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: 18 to 49 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 18 to 49 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 17, 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 1.2 °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 1.2 °C, the absolute minimum -2.3 °C, 35 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 41.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 5.5 °C in July (across the envelope cells 2.1 °C to 9.4 °C), warmest day 28.9 °C in January (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 1.2 °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: 53 to 57% 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 357 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	29 / 26–31	29 / 26–30	27 / 24–28	24 / 21–25	21 / 18–23	18 / 15–20	17 / 15–20	19 / 16–21	21 / 19–23	23 / 21–25	26 / 23–27	28 / 24–30
Night °C	16 / 14–18	16 / 14–18	15 / 13–17	12 / 10–15	9 / 6–12	6 / 3–10	6 / 2–9	7 / 4–10	9 / 6–11	11 / 9–13	13 / 10–15	15 / 13–16
Rain mm	35 / 18–63	33 / 17–66	42 / 23–65	41 / 25–60	27 / 14–42	24 / 11–45	26 / 8–50	33 / 14–53	24 / 12–40	40 / 20–63	38 / 20–71	36 / 21–63
DLI	49 / 43–53	43 / 38–48	36 / 33–39	27 / 25–31	21 / 19–24	18 / 17–21	20 / 18–23	24 / 23–29	32 / 30–38	39 / 36–44	46 / 41–51	49 / 44–54
RH %	55 / 50–61	56 / 51–62	57 / 51–62	56 / 51–61	54 / 50–58	54 / 50–57	53 / 49–57	55 / 47–58	56 / 47–59	56 / 49–60	55 / 49–60	55 / 49–60

Each figure is the median across the 357 grid cells holding the 628 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 2449:4042 (-32.475, 22.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -2.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 1.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 41.6 °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 357 distinct grid cells holding the 628 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2449:4042 (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 -32.50_21.875, lapse-corrected -109 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 697 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.

NativeCape Provinces, Lesotho, Namibia, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Northern Provinces

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

Map marker-33.774, 21.25 · in the densest population, 462 records (69% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 665 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 184 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 9 km away. 2 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 37 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 665 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) Jeremy Gilmore, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Nicola van Berkel, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); (c) jillblignaut, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA).

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

Phytochemical profiling, HPLC analysis, and antimicrobial potential of Curio radicans (L. f.) P.V. Heath

Muhammad Moazzam Naseer, Muhammad Adil (2025) · Scientific Reports

Gas Chromatography‐Mass Spectrometry Analysis, Genoprotective, and Antioxidant Potential of Curio radicans (L. f.) P.V. Heath

Muhammad Naseer, Muhammad Adil, Sarir Ahmad, Mikhlid H. Almutairi (2025) · ChemistryOpen

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