Species
+

Gunnera manicata Linden

Brazilian Giant Rhubarb, Brazilian Giant-rhubarb

Climate known 4 photographs
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

Gunnera manicata, known as Brazilian giant-rhubarb, giant rhubarb, or dinosaur food is a species of flowering plant in the family Gunneraceae from the coastal Serra do Mar Mountains of Santa Catarina, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul States, Brazil. In cultivation, the name G. manicata has regularly been wrongly applied to the hybrid with G. tinctoria, G. × cryptica.

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

About the genus · Gunnera

Gunnera is the sole genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Gunneraceae, which contains 63 species. Some species in this genus, namely those in the subgenus Panke, have extremely large leaves. Species in the genus are variously native to Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Papuasia, Hawaii, insular Southeast Asia, eastern Africa, and Madagascar. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Gunneraceae
Described by
Linden
Native to
Brazil South
Wild records
87 in range· 49 open

At a glance

Warmest month
24°C
Jan, mean day; nights 16 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2244mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Feb 283 mm (CHELSA)
Light
17–38DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (January and March to September in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 2244 mm a year, wettest February at 283 mm, driest June at 125 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 38 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 Gunnera brasiliensis Schindl.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (January and March 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 (1701 mm of 2244 mm) takes 8 months, September to March and July. Mean temperature moves 8.4 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: January and March to September.

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 2244 mm a year, wettest February at 283 mm, driest June at 125 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2244 mm a year at the habitat, 1701 mm of it September to March and July. Wettest month February at 283 mm, driest June at 125 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1747 mm to 2717 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 38 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 38 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 40).

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 -2.9 °C, about 1 frost night a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.5 °C in July (across the envelope cells 5.5 °C to 9.7 °C), warmest day 24.1 °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: 62 to 70% 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 16 °C in Jul to 24 °C in Jan; mean night from 8 °C in Jul to 16 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 2244 mm of rain a year, most in Feb. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 44 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -2.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°10°20°30°40°frost29.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-2.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 17–38RH 62–70 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 44 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 °C24 / 21–2724 / 21–2723 / 20–2621 / 18–2418 / 15–2116 / 14–1916 / 14–1918 / 16–2018 / 16–2120 / 18–2322 / 19–2424 / 21–26
Night °C16 / 14–1916 / 14–1915 / 13–1813 / 11–1610 / 7–128 / 6–118 / 6–109 / 7–1110 / 7–1212 / 9–1413 / 11–1615 / 12–18
Rain mm278 / 198–331283 / 188–349182 / 124–227139 / 108–174146 / 123–161125 / 102–173165 / 136–197133 / 107–174196 / 162–242198 / 170–233193 / 147–226206 / 156–246
DLI36 / 34–3733 / 32–3430 / 28–3124 / 22–2519 / 18–2017 / 16–1818 / 17–1923 / 21–2325 / 23–2630 / 28–3235 / 33–3738 / 35–40
RH %70 / 66–7169 / 67–7169 / 66–7167 / 65–7065 / 63–6864 / 61–6763 / 61–6862 / 60–6765 / 64–6967 / 66–7067 / 65–6968 / 65–69

Each figure is the median across the 44 grid cells holding the 81 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 2383:2599 (-29.175, -50.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -2.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 1.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.5 °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 44 distinct grid cells holding the 81 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2383:2599 (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 -29.00_-50.000, lapse-corrected +23 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 705 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.
NativeBrazil South
Kew's description“perennial or rhizomatous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-28.298, -49.932 · in the densest population, 81 records (93% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 87 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 49 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 17 km away. 160 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 6 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 87 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Gunnera manicataGunnera manicataGunnera manicata

Photographs: unknown, CC BY, via GBIF (2); mnt99york, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF.

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

Gamma Paleohexaploidy in the Stem Lineage of Core Eudicots: Significance for MADS-Box Gene and Species Diversification
Dries Vekemans, Sebastian Proost, Kevin Vanneste, Heleen Coenen (2012) · Molecular Biology and Evolution
Cyanobacterial chemotaxis to extracts of host and nonhost plants
Malin Nilsson, Ulla Rasmussen, Birgitta Bergman (2005) · FEMS Microbiology Ecology
Nostopeptolide plays a governing role during cellular differentiation of the symbiotic cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme
Anton Liaimer, Eric J. N. Helfrich, K. Hinrichs, Arthur Guljamow (2015) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Multiple Roles of Soluble Sugars in the Establishment of Gunnera-Nostoc Endosymbiosis
Hima J. Khamar, Erick K. Breathwaite, Christine E. Prasse, Elizabeth Fraley (2010) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Nitrogen Deprivation Stimulates Symbiotic Gland Development in Gunnera manicata
Wan-Ling Chiu, Gerald A. Peters, G. Levieille, Patrick C. Still (2005) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Protein Expression Profiles in an Endosymbiotic Cyanobacterium Revealed by a Proteomic Approach
Martin Ekman, Petter Tollbäck, Johan Klint, Birgitta Bergman (2006) · Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions
The Role of Papillae during the Infection Process in the Gunnera-Nostoc Symbiosis
Eiji Uheda, Warwick B. Silvester (2001) · Plant and Cell Physiology
Arabinogalactan Proteins Occur in the Free-Living Cyanobacterium Genus Nostoc and in Plant–Nostoc Symbioses
Owen Jackson, O. C. Taylor, David G. Adams, J. Paul Knox (2012) · Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions
The identity of Gunnera manicata Linden ex André resolving a BrazilianColombian enigma
Livia Wanntorp, Hans‐Erik Wanntorp, Mari Källersjö (2002) · Taxon

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 Gunnera 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 not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 22 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: filled 2026-09-20
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 29 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.