Pinguicula pumila Michx.

Small butterwort, Valentine's flower, small butterwort

Climate known 89 photographs 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

Pinguicula pumila, commonly known as the small butterwort or dwarf butterwort is a small species of carnivorous plant in the genus Pinguicula. It is native to the southeastern United States, where it grows in habitats where soil is poor in nutrition.

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

About the genus · Pinguicula

Pinguicula, commonly known as butterworts, is a genus of carnivorous flowering plants in the family Lentibulariaceae. They use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from the environment. 126 species are currently accepted. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family

Lentibulariaceae

Described by

Michx.

Native to

Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama +7

Wild records

1515 in range· 430 open

At a glance

Warmest month

32°C

Jul, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1387mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Aug 200 mm (CHELSA)

Light

19–41DLI

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 Pinguicula, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, March and May to October in the northern hemisphere (March and May to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1387 mm a year, wettest August at 200 mm, driest November at 60 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 19 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 0.3 °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 Isoloba pumila (Michx.) Raf.; Pinguicula alpina Clementi; Pinguicula australis Nutt.; Pinguicula buswellii (Moldenke) Moldenke; Pinguicula floridensis Chapm. and 5 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a carnivorous plant by the genus Pinguicula, 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, March and May to October in the northern hemisphere (March and 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 (1033 mm of 1387 mm) falls in March and May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 24.5 °C against a yearly mean of 21.2 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April and September.

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 1387 mm a year, wettest August at 200 mm, driest November at 60 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1387 mm a year at the habitat, 1033 mm of it March and May to October. Wettest month August at 200 mm, driest November at 60 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1298 mm to 1572 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: 19 to 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 19 to 41 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 17, the highest 90th-percentile month 43).

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 0.3 °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 0.3 °C, the absolute minimum -8.8 °C, about 3 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 10.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells 6.5 °C to 14.2 °C), warmest day 31.7 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 0.3 °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: 57 to 64% 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 552 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	19 / 16–23	20 / 17–24	23 / 21–26	26 / 24–28	30 / 27–31	31 / 29–32	32 / 30–33	31 / 30–33	30 / 29–31	27 / 25–29	23 / 21–26	20 / 17–24
Night °C	11 / 7–14	12 / 8–15	14 / 11–17	16 / 14–19	20 / 18–22	23 / 22–24	24 / 23–25	24 / 23–25	23 / 21–24	20 / 16–22	16 / 12–19	12 / 8–16
Rain mm	75 / 47–127	83 / 55–126	105 / 71–142	68 / 60–104	86 / 61–125	185 / 151–240	190 / 127–228	200 / 112–240	170 / 121–213	97 / 73–131	60 / 50–134	68 / 41–144
DLI	21 / 18–23	25 / 22–28	32 / 29–34	39 / 36–41	41 / 39–43	38 / 37–40	38 / 37–40	35 / 34–37	31 / 30–32	27 / 26–29	22 / 20–24	19 / 17–21
RH %	58 / 58–60	58 / 58–60	58 / 57–59	57 / 56–59	58 / 57–61	62 / 61–64	63 / 62–64	64 / 61–65	63 / 59–64	60 / 58–61	59 / 58–59	59 / 58–60

Each figure is the median across the 552 grid cells holding the 1060 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 1221:1970 (28.925, -81.475). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -8.8 °C, 1st-percentile night 0.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.7 °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 552 distinct grid cells holding the 1060 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1221:1970 (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_-81.250, lapse-corrected -2 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 14 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.

NativeOklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Bahamas

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

Map marker28.743, -81.479 · in the densest population, 669 records (44% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1515 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 430 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 6 km away. 5 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 455 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 1515 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) harrier, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Karen Guin, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4).

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

Studies in the vascular flora of the southeastern United States. X

Alan S. Weakley, Richard J. LeBlond, Patrick D. McMillan, Bruce A. Sorrie (2024) · Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas

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