Drosanthemum floribundum, Sumner, Christchurch 8081, New Zealand

Drosanthemum floribundum (Haw.) Schwantes

Pale Dew-Plant, Pale Dewfig, Pale Dewplant, Persian Carpet

Climate known 61 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

Drosanthemum floribundum, commonly known as rodondo creeper, pale dewplant, or dew-flower, is a succulent plant in the ice plant family, Aizoaceae. The species is native to the Eastern Cape in South Africa and is naturalised in Portugal and the states of South Australia, Western Australia, and Victoria in Australia, as well as Pacific Grove, California where it is called the Magic Carpet. It is a trailing perennial with hairy stems and leaves that are either cylindrical or triangular in cross section. These are between 3 and 15 mm in length and 1 to 2.5 mm in width. More on Wikipedia ›

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

About the genus · Drosanthemum

Drosanthemum is a genus of succulent plants in the ice plant family native to the winter-rainfall regions of southern Africa, including Namibia and the Cape Provinces and Free State of South Africa. Most species bear colorful flowers.

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

Family

Aizoaceae

Described by

(Haw.) Schwantes

Native to

Cape Provinces

Wild records

163 in range· 103 open

At a glance

Warmest month

26°C

Feb, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

404mm/yr

10 wet months · peak Aug 46 mm (CHELSA)

Light

17–52DLI

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 Aizoaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to April in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 404 mm a year, wettest August at 46 mm, driest February at 23 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 52 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 6.0 °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 Drosanthemum torquatum (Haw.) Schwantes; Mesembryanthemum floribundum Haw.; Mesembryanthemum furfureum Haw.; Mesembryanthemum hirtellum Salm-Dyck; Mesembryanthemum hispidum var. pallidum Haw. and 2 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by Aizoaceae, which is usually but not always 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 (September to April 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 (302 mm of 404 mm) takes 8 months, March to October. Mean temperature moves 8.5 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: September to April.

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 404 mm a year, wettest August at 46 mm, driest February at 23 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

404 mm a year at the habitat, 302 mm of it March to October. Wettest month August at 46 mm, driest February at 23 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 192 mm to 761 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: 17 to 52 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 52 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 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 56).

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 6.0 °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 6.0 °C, the absolute minimum 3.7 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 8.3 °C in July (across the envelope cells 3.8 °C to 12.1 °C), warmest day 26.1 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 6.0 °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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 129 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	26 / 21–30	26 / 21–31	25 / 21–29	23 / 19–25	20 / 17–22	17 / 16–20	17 / 15–20	17 / 16–20	20 / 16–23	22 / 18–25	23 / 19–27	25 / 20–29
Night °C	16 / 14–18	17 / 15–19	16 / 14–18	14 / 11–16	11 / 8–14	9 / 4–13	8 / 4–12	9 / 5–12	10 / 7–13	12 / 9–14	14 / 11–16	15 / 13–17
Rain mm	24 / 6–49	23 / 6–47	31 / 10–59	41 / 19–70	37 / 17–90	38 / 16–113	42 / 16–125	46 / 16–100	31 / 12–72	36 / 13–67	29 / 10–61	26 / 8–52
DLI	52 / 45–55	46 / 40–50	38 / 33–41	27 / 25–32	20 / 19–25	17 / 16–21	19 / 17–23	24 / 22–29	32 / 30–38	41 / 37–46	49 / 43–53	52 / 46–56
RH %	59 / 49–63	59 / 50–64	60 / 49–64	60 / 50–64	58 / 50–62	56 / 51–60	56 / 50–60	58 / 50–61	59 / 49–62	59 / 49–62	59 / 49–62	58 / 49–62

Each figure is the median across the 129 grid cells holding the 161 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 2477:3972 (-33.875, 18.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 3.7 °C, 1st-percentile night 6.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.2 °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 129 distinct grid cells holding the 161 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2477:3972 (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 -34.00_18.750, lapse-corrected -55 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 154 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· introduced: Great Britain, Baleares, France, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Azores, Canary Is., Madeira, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, New Zealand North, New Zealand South, California, Mexico Northwest, Ecuador

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

Map marker-33.553, 18.542 · in the densest population, 110 records (67% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 163 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 103 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 30 km away. 1004 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 2 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 163 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Jenny Saito, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Tom and T Herman, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Alex Press, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) William Stephens, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) wild_wind, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

The Aizoaceae naturalized in the British Isles

Chris Preston (1988)

Plant Growth on a Mediterranean Green Roof: A Pilot Study on Influence of Substrate Depth, Substrate Composition, and Type of Green Roof

Christina Marouli, Pinelopi Savvidou, Maria Koutsokali, Paraskevi Papadopoulou (2022) · Frontiers in Sustainable Cities

Acylated betacyanins from Drosanthemum floribundum

Giuseppe Impellizzeri, Mario Piattelli, Sebastiano Sciuto (1973) · Phytochemistry

Drosanthemum floribundum (Haw.) Schwantes: first record as a naturalised species in Algeria

Nora Sakhraoui, Hicham Boughendjioua, Gideon F. Smith, Franz Essl (2023) · Bradleya

Drosanthemum floribundum

CABI (2019) · CABI Compendium

Amostragem da flora costeira da Ilha Graciosa

Luís Silva, Nuno Cordeiro (2005) · Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT)

Drosanthemum floribundum (Haw.) Schwantes

Mary Maud Page (1923)

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