Nolina erumpens (Torr.) S.Watson

Foothill Beargrass, beargrass

Climate known 49 photographs Cactus or succulent

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

Nolina erumpens, the foothill beargrass, mesa sacahuista, or sand beargrass, is a member of the subfamily Convallarioideae of family Asparagaceae, native to New Mexico, Texas and adjacent regions of north Mexico.

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

About the genus · Nolina

Nolina is a genus of temperate and tropical xerophytic flowering plants belonging to the family Asparagaceae. The native distribution of the genus includes most of Mexico and the southern regions of the United States north to Nevada and Colorado. Especially in the USA, members of the genus are known as beargrass, some of which are cultivated as ornamental plants.

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

Family

Asparagaceae

Described by

(Torr.) S.Watson

Native to

Texas, Mexico Northeast

Wild records

189 in range· 66 open

At a glance

Warmest month

32°C

Jun, mean day; nights 20 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

410mm/yr

6 wet months · peak Jul 66 mm (CHELSA)

Light

23–49DLI

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 cactus or succulent by the genus Nolina, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 410 mm a year, wettest July at 66 mm, driest March at 12 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 49 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -6.7 °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 Beaucarnea erumpens (Torr.) Baker; Dasylirion erumpens Torr.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Nolina, 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, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May 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 (320 mm of 410 mm) falls in May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 23.7 °C against a yearly mean of 17.9 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November 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 410 mm a year, wettest July at 66 mm, driest March at 12 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

410 mm a year at the habitat, 320 mm of it May to October. Wettest month July at 66 mm, driest March at 12 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 300 mm to 527 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: 23 to 49 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 49 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 51).

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 -6.7 °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 -6.7 °C, the absolute minimum -14.3 °C, about 49 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 2.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells 0.3 °C to 4.4 °C), warmest day 32.2 °C in June (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -6.7 °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: 41 to 54% 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 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	16 / 14–18	19 / 17–21	22 / 20–25	27 / 24–29	30 / 27–33	32 / 29–35	32 / 28–34	31 / 27–33	29 / 25–31	25 / 22–27	20 / 18–22	16 / 14–18
Night °C	3 / 0–4	4 / 2–6	7 / 5–10	12 / 8–14	16 / 12–18	20 / 16–22	20 / 16–23	20 / 16–23	17 / 14–20	13 / 9–15	7 / 5–9	3 / 1–5
Rain mm	16 / 12–20	14 / 11–21	12 / 8–21	20 / 12–30	41 / 16–53	57 / 35–69	66 / 48–81	63 / 46–78	49 / 40–63	44 / 32–50	15 / 11–20	13 / 10–18
DLI	25 / 23–27	31 / 29–33	40 / 37–41	46 / 43–47	49 / 46–51	48 / 45–50	45 / 43–46	42 / 41–43	38 / 37–39	32 / 30–34	26 / 24–29	23 / 20–25
RH %	48 / 47–52	45 / 44–51	42 / 40–49	41 / 38–48	44 / 40–52	49 / 43–54	52 / 48–54	52 / 49–55	54 / 49–56	50 / 48–54	47 / 46–52	48 / 46–52

Each figure is the median across the 44 grid cells holding the 177 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 1218:1546 (29.075, -102.675). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -14.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -6.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.6 °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 177 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1218:1546 (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_-102.500, lapse-corrected +286 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1602 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.

NativeTexas, Mexico Northeast

Kew's description“perennial or subshrub” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker29.27, -103.297 · in the densest population, 177 records (94% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 189 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 66 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 4 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 12 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 189 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Reid Hardin, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Vincent Weber, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); (c) Noland Martin, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Richard Jacob, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0.

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

Trophobiosis and Feeding Habits of Liometopum apiculatum (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the Chisos Mountains, Texas

Arnold Van Pelt (1971) · Annals of the Entomological Society of America

Occurrence Download