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Heliamphora minor Gleason

small marsh pitcher

Climate known Photographs not checked Carnivorous plant

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

Heliamphora minor is a species of marsh pitcher plant endemic to Auyán-tepui in Venezuela. As the name suggests, it is one of the smallest species in the genus. It is closely related to H. ciliata and H. pulchella.

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

About the genus · Heliamphora

The genus Heliamphora contains 24 species of pitcher plants endemic to South America. The species are collectively known as sun pitchers, based on the mistaken notion that the heli of Heliamphora is from the Greek helios, meaning "sun". The name instead derives from the Greek helos, meaning "marsh", so a more accurate translation of their scientific name would be marsh pitcher plants. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family

Sarraceniaceae

Described by

Gleason

Native to

Venezuela

Wild records

33 in range· 32 open

At a glance

Warmest month

25°C

Oct, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

4169mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Jul 585 mm (CHELSA)

Light

27–36DLI

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 carnivorous plant by the genus Heliamphora, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, April to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (1.3 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 4169 mm a year, wettest July at 585 mm, driest February at 148 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 11.3 °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.

Cultivation

Grouped as a carnivorous plant by the genus Heliamphora, 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: a sharp rainy season, April to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (1.3 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (3148 mm of 4169 mm) falls in April to October. The temperature curve is flat, 1.3 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 4169 mm a year, wettest July at 585 mm, driest February at 148 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

4169 mm a year at the habitat, 3148 mm of it April to October. Wettest month July at 585 mm, driest February at 148 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 2512 mm to 5441 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: 27 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 27 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 25, the highest 90th-percentile month 38).

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 11.3 °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 11.3 °C, the absolute minimum 9.1 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 14.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells 9.6 °C to 18.9 °C), warmest day 24.5 °C in October (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 11.3 °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: 65 to 73% 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 24 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	23 / 18–28	24 / 19–29	24 / 19–29	24 / 19–29	23 / 18–28	23 / 17–27	23 / 17–27	23 / 18–27	24 / 19–28	25 / 19–29	24 / 19–28	23 / 18–28
Night °C	14 / 10–19	15 / 10–19	15 / 10–19	15 / 11–20	16 / 11–20	15 / 11–20	15 / 10–19	15 / 10–19	15 / 10–19	15 / 10–20	15 / 10–20	15 / 10–19
Rain mm	160 / 65–203	148 / 56–187	170 / 60–215	322 / 154–415	478 / 286–626	577 / 394–742	585 / 420–745	518 / 362–667	348 / 266–474	320 / 208–436	299 / 168–427	244 / 105–325
DLI	33 / 30–35	35 / 33–37	36 / 34–38	31 / 30–35	27 / 25–31	27 / 25–30	30 / 28–31	33 / 31–34	36 / 34–37	34 / 32–37	31 / 29–34	30 / 28–33
RH %	67 / 63–71	66 / 62–69	65 / 60–69	68 / 63–70	71 / 67–74	73 / 69–76	73 / 69–76	71 / 67–74	68 / 65–71	68 / 64–70	69 / 66–72	69 / 65–72

Each figure is the median across the 24 grid cells holding the 30 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 1696:2357 (5.175, -62.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 9.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 11.3 °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 24 distinct grid cells holding the 30 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1696:2357 (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 5.00_-61.875, lapse-corrected +459 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1397 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.

NativeVenezuela

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

Map marker5.3, -62.15 · in the densest population, 32 records (97% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 33 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 32 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 2 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 3 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 33 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Heliamphora minor, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Cytotoxicity screening of endemic plants from Guayana highlands.

José Luis Guil‐Guerrero, Pablo Campra (2009) · PubMed

Capillarity Constructed Open Siphon for Sustainable Drainage

Fenglin Chen, Ziyang Cheng, Can Gao, Chuxin Li (2024) · Small

Capillary Wicking on Heliamphora minor-Mimicking Mesoscopic Trichomes Array

Fenglin Chen, Ziyang Cheng, Lei Jiang, Zhichao Dong (2024) · Biomimetics

Taxonomía de Heliamphora minor Gleason (Sarraceniaceae) del Auyán-Tepui, incluyendo una nueva variedad

Andreas Fleischmann, José Ramón Grande Allende (2011) · Redalyc (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México)

Plastid Genome Evolution Across the Roridulaceae–Sarraceniaceae Clade (Ericales) in Relation to Carnivorous Strategies

Shengxin Chang, Peng Wang, Wei Han, Baiyin Yu (2026) · Ecology and Evolution

Occurrence Download