Species
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Lycoris radiata (L'Hér.) Herb.

Bakung labah labah merah, Red spider lily, hurricane lily, red magic lily

Climate known 40 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex
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

Lycoris radiata, known as the red spider lily, red magic lily, corpse flower, or equinox flower, is a plant in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. It is originally from China, Japan, Korea and Nepal and spread from there to the United States and elsewhere. It is considered naturalized in Seychelles and in the Ryukyu Islands. It flowers in the late summer or autumn, often in response to heavy rainfall. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Amaryllidaceae
Described by
(L'Hér.) Herb.
Native to
China South-Central, China North-Central, China Southeast +3
Wild records
653 in range· 263 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Aug, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1549mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 206 mm (CHELSA)
Light
16–34DLI
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 bulb, tuber or caudex by Amaryllidaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to October in the northern hemisphere (April to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1549 mm a year, wettest June at 206 mm, driest December at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -5.3 °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.

Also known as Amaryllis radiata L'Hér.; Lycoris radiata f. bicolor N.Yonez.; Lycoris radiata var. kazukoana N.Yonez.; Lycoris radiata var. pumila Grey; Lycoris radiata var. radiata and 6 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by Amaryllidaceae, which is usually but not always 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, April to October in the northern hemisphere (April to October 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 (1173 mm of 1549 mm) falls in April to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 20.9 °C against a yearly mean of 15.4 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to April.

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 1549 mm a year, wettest June at 206 mm, driest December at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1549 mm a year at the habitat, 1173 mm of it April to October. Wettest month June at 206 mm, driest December at 50 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1229 mm to 2287 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: 16 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 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 37).

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 -5.3 °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 -5.3 °C, the absolute minimum -15.3 °C, about 47 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 37.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 0.0 °C in January (across the envelope cells -5.2 °C to 4.3 °C), warmest day 29.0 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -5.3 °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: 58 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 8 °C in Jan to 29 °C in Aug; mean night from 0 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1549 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 468 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -15.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 37.8 °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°frost37.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)-15.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 16–34RH 58–66 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 468 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 °C8 / 3–109 / 5–1212 / 9–1617 / 14–2122 / 19–2625 / 22–2928 / 25–3229 / 26–3226 / 23–2820 / 18–2315 / 12–1810 / 6–13
Night °C0 / -5–41 / -4–64 / 0–810 / 6–1314 / 11–1818 / 16–2222 / 19–2523 / 20–2520 / 16–2214 / 10–178 / 3–122 / -2–7
Rain mm59 / 28–9071 / 35–121116 / 54–194126 / 84–216151 / 104–251206 / 154–340202 / 143–333175 / 130–290193 / 96–277120 / 57–20080 / 47–12450 / 23–71
DLI17 / 15–1821 / 18–2326 / 20–2931 / 25–3534 / 28–3731 / 28–3532 / 29–3632 / 29–3426 / 23–2822 / 19–2517 / 16–1916 / 14–18
RH %58 / 54–6258 / 54–6358 / 56–6459 / 57–6461 / 59–6465 / 62–6866 / 62–7065 / 62–6863 / 61–6660 / 58–6459 / 57–6258 / 55–61

Each figure is the median across the 468 grid cells holding the 627 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 1194:6002 (30.275, 120.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -15.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -5.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 37.8 °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 468 distinct grid cells holding the 627 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1194:6002 (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 30.50_120.000, lapse-corrected -53 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 18 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, China North-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Korea, Nepal· introduced: Seychelles, Nansei-shoto, Illinois, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Virginia
Kew's description“bulbous geophyte” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker35.65, 139.493 · in the densest population, 223 records (34% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 653 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 263 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 4 km away. 1217 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 26 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 653 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Lycoris radiataLycoris radiataLycoris radiataLycoris radiataLycoris radiataLycoris radiataLycoris radiataLycoris radiata

Photographs: (c) Kevin Jones, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Eamon Corbett, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) evangrimes, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Marco Mussita, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Kim, Hyun-tae, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

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

Potential roles of medicinal plants for the treatment of viral diseases focusing on COVID ‐19: A review
Bikash Adhikari, Bishnu P. Marasini, Binod Rayamajhee, Bibek Raj Bhattarai (2020) · Phytotherapy Research
Lycoricidinol and Lycoricidine, New Plant-growth Regulators in the Bulbs of Lycoris radiata HERB.
Toshihiko Okamoto, Yoshihiko Torii, Yo Isogai (1968) · Chemical and Pharmaceutical Bulletin
Plant Sources of Galanthamine: Phytochemical and Biotechnological Aspects
Strahil Berkov, L. Georgieva, V. Kondakova, A. Atanassov (2009) · Biotechnology & Biotechnological Equipment
Lycorine hydrochloride inhibits cell proliferation and induces apoptosis through promoting FBXW7-MCL1 axis in gastric cancer
Chongyang Li, Chaowei Deng, Guangzhao Pan, Xue Wang (2020) · Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research
A new pathogenesis-related protein, LrPR4, from Lycoris radiata, and its antifungal activity against Magnaporthe grisea
Xiaodan Li, Bing Xia, Yumei Jiang, Qingsong Wu (2009) · Molecular Biology Reports
Antiproliferative activities of Amaryllidaceae alkaloids from Lycoris radiata targeting DNA topoisomerase I
Guilin Chen, Yongqiang Tian, Jian‐Lin Wu, Na Li (2016) · Scientific Reports
Transcriptome Analysis and Metabolic Profiling of Lycoris Radiata
Chang Ha Park, Hyeon Ji Yeo, Ye Eun Park, Seung‐A Baek (2019) · Biology

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 Lycoris 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: 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 52 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.