Species
+

Heuchera sanguinea Engelm.

Blutrotes Steinglöckel (DE), Coral Bells, Coralbells, Coralbells (EN)

Climate known 51 photographs Temperate garden 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

Heuchera sanguinea, called coral bells, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Heuchera, native to the US states of Arizona and New Mexico, and to northern Mexico. A number of cultivars are commercially available. The Latin specific epithet sanguinea means blood-red, in reference to the color of the flowers. Flowers are deep pink to red, sweetly fragrant, and bell-shaped. More on Wikipedia ›

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

About the genus · Heuchera

Heuchera is a genus of largely evergreen perennial plants in the family Saxifragaceae. All species are native to North America except for Heuchera sichotensis, native to the Russian Far East. Common names include alumroot and coral bells.

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

Family
Saxifragaceae
Described by
Engelm.
Native to
Arizona, New Mexico, Mexico Northeast +1
Wild records
552 in range· 188 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Jun, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
521mm/yr
8 wet months · peak Jul 118 mm (CHELSA)
Light
22–52DLI
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 temperate garden plant by the genus Heuchera, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, December to January and July to September in the northern hemisphere (December to January and July to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 521 mm a year, wettest July at 118 mm, driest May at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 22 to 52 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -5.5 °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 Heuchera sanguinea f. hirtella Rosend., Butters & Lakela; Heuchera sanguinea var. sanguinea; Heuchera sanguinea var. typica Rosend., Butters & Lakela; Heuchera townsendii Rydb.

Cultivation

Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Heuchera, 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 summer growing season, December to January and July to September in the northern hemisphere (December to January and July to September at the habitat, northern).

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

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (365 mm of 521 mm) falls in December to January and July to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 15.4 °C against a yearly mean of 14.7 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: January to March and June to July.

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 521 mm a year, wettest July at 118 mm, driest May at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

521 mm a year at the habitat, 365 mm of it December to January and July to September. Wettest month July at 118 mm, driest May at 9 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 409 mm to 923 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: 22 to 52 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 22 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 20, the highest 90th-percentile month 53).

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 -5.5 °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 -5.5 °C, the absolute minimum -12.1 °C, about 55 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells -3.0 °C to 3.1 °C), warmest day 30.3 °C in June (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -5.5 °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: 36 to 53% 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 13 °C in Jan to 30 °C in Jun; mean night from -0 °C in Jan to 17 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 521 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 163 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -12.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 38.2 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost38.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)-12.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 22–52RH 36–53 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 163 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 °C13 / 10–1715 / 12–1818 / 15–2122 / 19–2526 / 23–3030 / 26–3429 / 24–3328 / 24–3227 / 22–3022 / 19–2617 / 15–2013 / 10–17
Night °C-0 / -3–31 / -2–43 / 0–66 / 4–1011 / 7–1415 / 11–1917 / 12–2116 / 12–2014 / 10–189 / 6–124 / 1–70 / -3–3
Rain mm38 / 29–4933 / 22–4526 / 18–3714 / 10–199 / 7–1917 / 10–80118 / 82–251113 / 82–21655 / 42–11733 / 26–4724 / 18–3341 / 26–54
DLI24 / 22–2730 / 28–3340 / 38–4248 / 47–4952 / 51–5352 / 47–5344 / 40–4641 / 38–4238 / 36–4033 / 31–3527 / 24–2922 / 20–25
RH %48 / 46–5246 / 45–5043 / 42–4739 / 37–4436 / 34–4337 / 34–5049 / 46–6053 / 50–6148 / 45–5845 / 43–5345 / 43–5148 / 45–51

Each figure is the median across the 163 grid cells holding the 520 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 1155:1387 (32.225, -110.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -12.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -5.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.2 °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 163 distinct grid cells holding the 520 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1155:1387 (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 32.00_-110.625, lapse-corrected +235 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1497 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.
NativeArizona, New Mexico, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest· introduced: Great Britain, Germany
Kew's description“perennial or rhizomatous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker31.826, -110.774 · in the densest population, 482 records (87% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 552 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 188 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 8 km away. 723 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 32 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 552 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Heuchera sanguineaHeuchera sanguineaHeuchera sanguineaHeuchera sanguineaHeuchera sanguineaHeuchera sanguineaHeuchera sanguineaHeuchera sanguinea

Photographs: (c) Mike Ostrowski, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) Sue Carnahan, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Don Loarie, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Susan Murphy, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Jared Shorma, 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 Heuchera sanguinea, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Isolation and characterisation of plant defensins from seeds of Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Hippocastanaceae and Saxifragaceae
Rupert W. Osborn, Genoveva W. De Samblanx, Karin Thevissen, Inge J.W.M. Goderis (1995) · FEBS Letters
The Antifungal Plant Defensin HsAFP1 from Heuchera Sanguinea Induces Apoptosis in Candida Albicans
An Aerts, Leen Bammens, Gilmer Govaert, Didac Carmona‐Gutiérrez (2011) · Frontiers in Microbiology
Specific, High Affinity Binding Sites for an Antifungal Plant Defensin on Neurospora crassa Hyphae and Microsomal Membranes
Karin Thevissen, Rupert W. Osborn, David P. Acland, Willem F. Broekaert (1997) · Journal of Biological Chemistry
STUDIES IN BACTERIOSIS
MARGARET S. LACEY (1936) · Annals of Applied Biology
First Report of Leaf Blight on Coral Bells (Heuchera sanguinea) Caused by Rhizoctonia solani AG 1A in Italy
A Garibaldi, G. Gilardi, D. Bertetti, M. L. Gullino (2007) · Plant Disease

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 Heuchera 3 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 122 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.