Species
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Epipremnum pinnatum (L.) Engl.

Centipede tongavine, Dragon-tail, Native Monstera, Pothos, Tongavine, Centipede tongavine, Dragon-tail plant

Climate known 59 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

Epipremnum pinnatum is a species of flowering plant in the family Araceae. It has many common names, including centipede tongavine, taro vine, silver vine and dragon-tail plant. In the Philippines, it is known in Tagalog as tibatib.

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

About the genus · Epipremnum

Epipremnum is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araceae, found in tropical forests from China, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia to Australia the western Pacific. They are evergreen perennial vines climbing with the aid of aerial roots. They may be confused with other Monstereae such as Rhaphidophora, Scindapsus and Amydrium.

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

Family
Araceae
Described by
(L.) Engl.
Native to
China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast +35
Wild records
1495 in range· 480 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Jul, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2515mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Aug 298 mm (CHELSA)
Light
25–34DLI
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 the genus Epipremnum, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (February to September in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 2515 mm a year, wettest August at 298 mm, driest November at 139 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 10.4 °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 Epipremnum angustilobum K.Krause; Epipremnum crassifolium Engl.; Epipremnum elegans Engl.; Epipremnum elegans f. ternatensis Alderw.; Epipremnum elegans subsp. ternatensis Alderw. and 45 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Epipremnum, which is reliably 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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (February to September 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 (1902 mm of 2515 mm) takes 8 months, February to September. Mean temperature moves 5.5 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: August 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 2515 mm a year, wettest August at 298 mm, driest November at 139 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2515 mm a year at the habitat, 1902 mm of it February to September. Wettest month August at 298 mm, driest November at 139 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1629 mm to 4076 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: 25 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 34 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 14, the highest 90th-percentile month 43).

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 10.4 °C habitat night).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 10.4 °C, the absolute minimum 5.7 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 39.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 19.1 °C in January (across the envelope cells 9.8 °C to 25.1 °C), warmest day 28.0 °C in July (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 10.4 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a tropical foliage plant (grouped by the genus Epipremnum, which is reliably 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: 64 to 66% 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 23 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Jul; mean night from 19 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 2515 mm of rain a year, most in Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 685 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 5.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 39.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°20°30°40°50°39.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)5.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 25–34RH 64–66 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 685 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 °C23 / 16–2925 / 17–2925 / 20–3026 / 22–3026 / 23–3027 / 22–3028 / 22–3028 / 22–3027 / 24–2926 / 23–2925 / 21–2924 / 17–29
Night °C19 / 10–2520 / 11–2520 / 13–2521 / 16–2622 / 18–2623 / 17–2623 / 17–2623 / 17–2623 / 18–2621 / 17–2521 / 15–2520 / 11–25
Rain mm162 / 22–436171 / 23–446184 / 39–420197 / 67–302244 / 102–387267 / 67–535249 / 60–553298 / 48–581292 / 52–533152 / 54–420139 / 42–361160 / 30–308
DLI27 / 14–4030 / 17–3833 / 23–3932 / 28–4032 / 26–3732 / 24–3634 / 25–3933 / 29–3632 / 28–3930 / 23–4327 / 17–4325 / 14–42
RH %65 / 59–7265 / 60–7265 / 61–7166 / 62–7166 / 62–7166 / 62–7066 / 61–7066 / 62–7066 / 61–7065 / 61–7065 / 60–7064 / 59–71

Each figure is the median across the 685 grid cells holding the 1460 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 2161:6518 (-18.075, 145.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 5.7 °C, 1st-percentile night 10.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 39.6 °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 685 distinct grid cells holding the 1460 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2161:6518 (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 -18.00_145.625, lapse-corrected -546 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 8 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.
NativeChina South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, India, Andaman Is., Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nicobar Is., Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea, Solomon Is., Northern Territory, Queensland, Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa, Santa Cruz Is., Tonga, Vanuatu, Wallis-Futuna Is., Cook Is., Caroline Is., Marshall Is.· introduced: Honduras, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Puerto Rico, Windward Is., Colombia
Kew's description“climber” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker24.549, 120.924 · in the densest population, 720 records (48% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1495 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 480 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 19 km away. 201 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 35 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 1495 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Epipremnum pinnatumEpipremnum pinnatumEpipremnum pinnatumEpipremnum pinnatumEpipremnum pinnatumEpipremnum pinnatumEpipremnum pinnatumEpipremnum pinnatum

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) P Jeganathan, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Jacy Chen, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

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

Antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis and some other medicinal plants commonly used in South-East Asia
Lai Wah Chan, Emily L.C. Cheah, Constance Lay Lay Saw, Wanyu Weng (2008) · Chinese Medicine
The Ethnobotany of Teeth Blackening in Southeast Asia
Thomas Zumbroich (2009) · Ethnobotany Research and Applications
Modeling plant leaves in marble-patterned colours with particle transportation system
Yodthong Rodkaew, Prabhas Chongstitvatana, Suchada Siripant, Chidchanok Lursinsap (2004)
Neural Network Application on Foliage Plant Identification
Abdul Kadir, Lukito Edi Nugroho, Adhi Susanto, Paulus Insap Santosa (2011) · International Journal of Computer Applications
Poststorage quality and rooting ability ofEpipremnum pinnatumcuttings after treatment with ethylene action inhibitors
Renate Müller, Margrethe Serek, Edward C. Sisler, A. Skytt Andersen (1997) · Journal of Horticultural Science
Uses of plants as medicine by Muna People, Sub District Wakarumba, District Muna, Province of SoutheastSulawesi
FLORENTINA INDAH WINDADRI, Mulyati Rahayu, Tahan Uji, Himmah Rustiami (2006) · Biodiversitas Journal of Biological Diversity
Studi inventarisasi Araceae di Gunung Seraya (Lempuyang), Karangasem, Bali
Ni Putu Sri Asih (2015) · Prosiding Seminar Nasional Masyarakat Biodiversitas Indonesia

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 Epipremnum 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (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 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried 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 2026-09-19; 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 91 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.