Species
+

Knautia arvensis (L.) Coult.

Bubliny, Field Scabious, Field scabiosa, Lüsruus

Climate known 59 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

Knautia arvensis, commonly known as field scabious, is a herbaceous perennial species of flowering plant in the honeysuckle family Caprifoliaceae.

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

About the genus · Knautia

Knautia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Caprifoliaceae. It includes 55 species native to Europe, North Africa, Western and Central Asia, and Siberia. The common names are variants of "widow flower". More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Caprifoliaceae
Described by
(L.) Coult.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +37
Wild records
611 in range· 210 open

At a glance

Warmest month
23°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
948mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Aug 91 mm (CHELSA)
Light
6–35DLI
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 (May to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 948 mm a year, wettest August at 91 mm, driest April at 58 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 6 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -11.7 °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 Knautia arvensis f. monstruosa Bolzon; Knautia arvensis var. alpestris Brügger; Knautia arvensis var. arvensis; Knautia arvensis var. budensis (Simonk.) Szabó; Knautia arvensis var. vulgaris Coult. and 9 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December 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 (685 mm of 948 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 17.9 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to June.

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 948 mm a year, wettest August at 91 mm, driest April at 58 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

948 mm a year at the habitat, 685 mm of it May to December. Wettest month August at 91 mm, driest April at 58 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 662 mm to 1381 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: 6 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 6 to 35 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 4, 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 -11.7 °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 -11.7 °C, the absolute minimum -23.7 °C, about 90 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -2.7 °C in January (across the envelope cells -7.0 °C to 1.3 °C), warmest day 22.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -11.7 °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: 59 to 67% 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 4 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul; mean night from -3 °C in Jan to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 948 mm of rain a year, most in Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 526 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -23.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.1 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost29.1° 99th-percentile day (undated)-23.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 6–35RH 59–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 526 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 °C4 / 1–66 / 2–79 / 5–1013 / 10–1517 / 15–1920 / 18–2323 / 20–2522 / 20–2418 / 16–2014 / 12–158 / 6–104 / 1–6
Night °C-3 / -7–1-2 / -6–11 / -3–34 / 1–59 / 6–1012 / 10–1314 / 12–1514 / 12–1511 / 9–127 / 4–92 / -2–5-1 / -6–2
Rain mm75 / 33–9860 / 34–8770 / 44–10458 / 42–9883 / 58–13389 / 66–14489 / 66–14791 / 63–14586 / 59–12783 / 58–11881 / 52–10883 / 48–118
DLI8 / 5–913 / 10–1520 / 16–2329 / 26–3134 / 32–3535 / 33–3735 / 32–3830 / 27–3222 / 18–2414 / 11–168 / 5–106 / 4–8
RH %66 / 62–6963 / 60–6661 / 59–6459 / 57–6159 / 57–6160 / 58–6259 / 57–6261 / 57–6263 / 60–6464 / 63–6666 / 64–6967 / 63–70

Each figure is the median across the 526 grid cells holding the 606 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 850:3771 (47.475, 8.575). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -23.7 °C, 1st-percentile night -11.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.1 °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 526 distinct grid cells holding the 606 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 850:3771 (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 47.50_8.750, lapse-corrected -82 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 485 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.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, France, Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Altay, Buryatiya, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Kazakhstan, North Caucasus· introduced: Føroyar, Iceland, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Primorye, Sakhalin, Pakistan, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario, Québec, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Wyoming, Illinois, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, Utah, Argentina South
Kew's description“biennial or perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker47.064, 7.472 · in the densest population, 481 records (79% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 611 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 210 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 71 km away. 5 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 4° block of the 611 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Knautia arvensisKnautia arvensisKnautia arvensisKnautia arvensisKnautia arvensisKnautia arvensisKnautia arvensisKnautia arvensis

Photographs: (c) Harrison J Elkins, some rights reserved (CC BY) (8).

Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media 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 Knautia arvensis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Niche pre‐emption increases with species richness in experimental plant communities
Peter Mwangi, Martin Schmitz, Christoph Scherber, Christiane Roscher (2006) · Journal of Ecology
Genetic differentiation within multiple common grassland plants supports seed transfer zones for ecological restoration
Walter Durka, Stefan G. Michalski, Kenneth Wayne Berendzen, Oliver Bossdorf (2016) · Journal of Applied Ecology
Metabolomics Unravel Contrasting Effects of Biodiversity on the Performance of Individual Plant Species
Christian Scherling, Christiane Roscher, Patrick Giavalisco, Ernst‐Detlef Schulze (2010) · PLoS ONE
Growth response of grassland species to ozone in relation to soil moisture condition and plant strategy
P. Bungener, S. Nussbaum, Anton Grub, Jürg Fuhrer (1999) · New Phytologist
Detection and identification of phytoplasmas in yellows‐diseased weeds in Italy
Carmine Marcone, A. Ragozzino, E. Seemüller (1997) · Plant Pathology

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 Knautia 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answercarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; 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 11 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.