Species
+

Scilla siberica Andrews

Siberian Squill, Squill

Climate known 12 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

Scilla siberica, the Siberian squill or wood squill, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to southwestern Russia, the Caucasus, and Turkey. Despite the botanical name, it is not native to Siberia.

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

About the genus · Scilla

Scilla is a genus of about 30 to 80 species of bulb-forming perennial herbaceous plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae. Sometimes called the squills in English, they are native to woodlands, subalpine meadows, and seashores throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. A few species are also naturalized in Australasia and North America. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Asparagaceae
Described by
Andrews
Native to
Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia +8
Wild records
187 in range· 47 open

At a glance

Warmest month
24°C
Jul, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
647mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 77 mm (CHELSA)
Light
4–37DLI
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 647 mm a year, wettest June at 77 mm, driest March at 36 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 37 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -25.0 °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 Othocallis siberica (Andrews) Speta; Scilla cernua F.Delaroche; Scilla siberica Haw.; Scilla sibirica Andrews.

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 (484 mm of 647 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 26.1 °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 647 mm a year, wettest June at 77 mm, driest March at 36 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

647 mm a year at the habitat, 484 mm of it May to December. Wettest month June at 77 mm, driest March at 36 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 557 mm to 869 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: 4 to 37 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 37 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 2, the highest 90th-percentile month 39).

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 -25.0 °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 -25.0 °C, the absolute minimum -36.2 °C, about 165 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -9.5 °C in February (across the envelope cells -11.8 °C to -5.3 °C), warmest day 24.1 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -25.0 °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: 56 to 72% 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 24 °C in Jul; mean night from -10 °C in Feb to 15 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest night. 647 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 150 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -36.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 31.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-20°20°40°frost31.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-36.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125mm rainDLI 4–37RH 56–72 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 150 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 °C-4 / -5–3-4 / -5–32 / 0–712 / 10–1418 / 17–2022 / 20–2424 / 23–2723 / 21–2617 / 15–2110 / 8–152 / -0–9-3 / -4–4
Night °C-9 / -11–-5-10 / -12–-5-5 / -7–-12 / 0–58 / 7–1013 / 12–1515 / 14–1714 / 13–179 / 8–124 / 2–7-3 / -5–1-8 / -10–-3
Rain mm47 / 33–6140 / 34–5436 / 31–6040 / 34–6750 / 43–8977 / 65–10475 / 60–8963 / 42–8461 / 49–7559 / 42–7350 / 45–7049 / 40–67
DLI5 / 3–1011 / 8–1619 / 17–2427 / 25–3134 / 33–3637 / 34–3936 / 33–3930 / 26–3520 / 16–2711 / 8–185 / 4–124 / 2–8
RH %72 / 64–7369 / 62–7163 / 61–6558 / 57–6156 / 54–6158 / 56–6158 / 55–5958 / 54–6160 / 57–6263 / 60–6568 / 63–6970 / 65–72

Each figure is the median across the 150 grid cells holding the 182 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 764:4323 (51.775, 36.175). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -36.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -25.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 31.5 °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 150 distinct grid cells holding the 182 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 764:4323 (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 52.00_36.250, lapse-corrected +1 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 216 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.
NativeKrym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, South European Russia, Ukraine, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Turkey· introduced: Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Baltic States, Northwest European Russia, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Québec, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Utah, Kentucky
Kew's description“bulbous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker55.756, 37.618 · in the densest population, 105 records (56% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 187 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 47 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 23 km away. 1585 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 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 2° block of the 187 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Scilla sibericaScilla sibericaScilla sibericaScilla sibericaScilla sibericaScilla sibericaScilla sibericaScilla siberica

Photographs: viktor, CC BY, via GBIF (6); unknown, CC BY-SA, via GBIF (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 Scilla siberica, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Systematic embryology of the Scilla siberica alliance (Hyacinthaceae)
Erika Svoma, Johann Greilhuber (1989) · Nordic Journal of Botany
Determination of in vitro Antioxidant, Anticholinergic, and Antiepileptic Activities of some Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Extracts
Bayram Yurt, Rüya Sağlamtaş, Yeliz Demir, Ebubekir İzol (2024) · Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam Üniversitesi Tarım ve Doğa Dergisi
Characterisation of the Complete Chloroplast Genomes of Seven Hyacinthus orientalis L. Cultivars: Insights into Cultivar Phylogeny
Kwan-Ho Wong, Hoi-Yan Wu, Bobby Lim‐Ho Kong, Grace Wing-Chiu But (2022) · Horticulturae
C-bands and chiasma distribution in Scilla siberica (Hyacinthaceae)
Renate Berger, J. Greilhuber (1991) · Genome
In vitro response of Scilla siberica
D. P. Ray Chaudhuri, Sumitra Sen (2002) · Scientia Horticulturae
In situ digestion of satellite DNA of Scilla siberica
Rafael Lozano, Carlos Sent�s, J. Fern�ndez-Piqueras, M. Ruiz Rej�n (1991) · Chromosoma
Relative Resistance of Ornamental Flowering Bulbs to Feeding Damage by Voles
Paul D. Curtis, Gwen B. Curtis, William B. Miller (2009) · HortTechnology

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 Scilla 84 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 not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 12 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
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 answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
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 60 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.