Spathoglottis unguiculata, Upolu, Western Samoa, WS

no rights reserved · observed growing wild · 2025-12-21

Spathoglottis unguiculata (Labill.) Rchb.f.

Orchidaceae

Climate known 2 photographs Orchid

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

Spathoglottis unguiculata is a species of flowering plant in the family Orchidaceae. It has underground pseudobulbs.

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

About the genus · Spathoglottis

Spathoglottis, commonly known as purple orchids or 苞舌兰属 is a genus of about fifty species of orchids in the family Orchidaceae. They are evergreen terrestrial herbs with crowded pseudobulbs, a small number of leaves and medium-sized resupinate flowers on an upright flowering stem. The sepals and petals are all similar to each other and are white, yellow, pink or purple. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family

Orchidaceae

Described by

(Labill.) Rchb.f.

Native to

New Caledonia, Vanuatu

Wild records

23 in range· 22 open

At a glance

Warmest month

27°C

Feb, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1797mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Mar 276 mm (CHELSA)

Light

21–43DLI

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 orchid by Orchidaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to December in the northern hemisphere (December to June at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 1797 mm a year, wettest March at 276 mm, driest September at 74 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 21 to 43 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 18.9 °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 Limodorum unguiculatum Labill.; Spathoglottis breviscapa Schltr.; Spathoglottis schinziana Kraenzl.

Cultivation

Grouped as a orchid by Orchidaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to December in the northern hemisphere (December to June at the habitat, southern).

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 (1354 mm of 1797 mm) falls in December to June, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 24.1 °C against a yearly mean of 23.0 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: June to December.

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 1797 mm a year, wettest March at 276 mm, driest September at 74 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1797 mm a year at the habitat, 1354 mm of it December to June. Wettest month March at 276 mm, driest September at 74 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1423 mm to 3309 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern 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: 21 to 43 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 21 to 43 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 44).

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 18.9 °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 18.9 °C, the absolute minimum 16.6 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 28.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 18.8 °C in August (across the envelope cells 17.3 °C to 20.0 °C), warmest day 27.1 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 18.9 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER); the archetype table's minimum for a orchid, 13 °C, is lower and does not raise it.

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, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 60 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 18 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	27 / 26–28	27 / 26–28	27 / 26–27	26 / 25–26	24 / 23–25	23 / 22–24	22 / 21–24	22 / 21–24	23 / 21–24	24 / 22–26	25 / 23–26	26 / 25–27
Night °C	24 / 22–24	24 / 22–25	24 / 22–25	23 / 21–24	22 / 20–22	20 / 19–21	19 / 18–20	19 / 17–20	19 / 18–20	20 / 19–21	22 / 20–22	23 / 21–24
Rain mm	212 / 157–378	231 / 181–375	276 / 223–392	166 / 125–359	150 / 108–275	138 / 107–240	94 / 70–140	89 / 69–178	74 / 48–167	79 / 56–233	107 / 86–335	181 / 139–297
DLI	41 / 39–43	39 / 36–40	34 / 32–35	30 / 28–32	24 / 23–26	21 / 20–24	22 / 22–26	28 / 26–30	35 / 34–37	40 / 38–41	42 / 39–43	43 / 40–44
RH %	65 / 63–72	66 / 64–72	66 / 64–72	64 / 62–72	62 / 59–71	63 / 58–70	60 / 56–68	60 / 57–68	61 / 58–69	61 / 59–70	61 / 60–71	64 / 62–71

Each figure is the median across the 18 grid cells holding the 23 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 2245:6928 (-22.275, 166.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 16.6 °C, 1st-percentile night 18.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 28.9 °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 18 distinct grid cells holding the 23 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2245:6928 (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 -22.50_166.250, lapse-corrected -9 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 8 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.

NativeNew Caledonia, Vanuatu

Kew's description“pseudobulbous geophyte” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-22.595, 167.457 · in the densest population, 14 records (61% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 23 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 22 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 18 km away. 31 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 23 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: Chuck Wilson, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF.

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

CHLOROPLAST DNA BARCODING OF SPATHOGLOTTIS SPECIES FOR GENETIC CONSERVATION

F.C. Ginibun, Marlene Saad, Ti-Yu Hong, Rofina Yasmin Othman (2010) · Acta Horticulturae

Evaluation of genetic variability in Spathoglottis species: A model orchid

G. Seeja, K. Arya, C. K. Biju, S. Sreekumar (2019) · Indian Journal of Agricultural Research

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