Species
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Spiraea trilobata L.

Asian meadowsweet, Asian meadowsweet, san lie xiu xian ju

Climate known 52 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

Spiraea trilobata, known as Asian meadowsweet, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae. It was first formally named in 1771. Spiraea trilobata is native to Asia. It has occasionally naturalized in the United States.

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

About the genus · Spiraea

Spiraea, sometimes spelled spirea in common names, and commonly known as meadowsweets or steeplebushes, is a genus of about 80 to 100 species of shrubs in the family Rosaceae. They are native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, with the greatest diversity in eastern Asia.

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

Family
Rosaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Altay, Krasnoyarsk, Kazakhstan +5
Wild records
878 in range· 265 open

At a glance

Warmest month
25°C
Jul, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
590mm/yr
7 wet months · peak Jul 138 mm (CHELSA)
Light
14–39DLI
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: a summer growing season, May to September in the northern hemisphere (May to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 590 mm a year, wettest July at 138 mm, driest January at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 14 to 39 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -20.5 °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 Eleiosina triloba (Murray) B.D.Jacks.; Spiraea crataegifolia Anon.; Spiraea grossulariifolia Zabel; Spiraea hookeri G.Kirchn.; Spiraea rotundifolia K.Koch and 4 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to September in the northern hemisphere (May to September 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 (458 mm of 590 mm) falls in May to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 17.2 °C against a yearly mean of 6.2 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to March.

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 590 mm a year, wettest July at 138 mm, driest January at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

590 mm a year at the habitat, 458 mm of it May to September. Wettest month July at 138 mm, driest January at 9 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 388 mm to 949 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: 14 to 39 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 14 to 39 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 5, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).

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 -20.5 °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 -20.5 °C, the absolute minimum -27.9 °C, about 178 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 33.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -15.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells -20.7 °C to -5.7 °C), warmest day 24.8 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -20.5 °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: 53 to 61% 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 -5 °C in Jan to 25 °C in Jul; mean night from -16 °C in Jan to 15 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 590 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 498 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -27.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 33.8 °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°frost33.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)-27.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 14–39RH 53–61 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 498 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-5 / -11–4-1 / -8–75 / -2–1313 / 6–2119 / 13–2623 / 18–3025 / 20–3124 / 19–2919 / 13–2512 / 5–194 / -4–12-3 / -10–6
Night °C-16 / -21–-6-13 / -19–-3-6 / -14–11 / -6–87 / 1–1413 / 7–1915 / 10–2214 / 8–218 / 2–161 / -5–9-6 / -14–2-13 / -18–-4
Rain mm9 / 3–339 / 4–3317 / 10–4232 / 22–7357 / 38–10187 / 55–124138 / 75–211112 / 63–17964 / 42–9234 / 22–7320 / 9–6011 / 3–42
DLI16 / 7–1922 / 14–2429 / 24–3135 / 31–3739 / 37–4139 / 37–4236 / 32–3931 / 30–3527 / 23–3022 / 13–2416 / 8–1914 / 5–17
RH %56 / 47–6255 / 47–6053 / 46–5953 / 45–5653 / 47–5756 / 51–6061 / 56–6360 / 56–6357 / 54–6056 / 51–5956 / 49–6156 / 48–62

Each figure is the median across the 498 grid cells holding the 824 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 987:5921 (40.625, 116.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -27.9 °C, 1st-percentile night -20.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 33.8 °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 498 distinct grid cells holding the 824 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 987:5921 (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 40.50_116.250, lapse-corrected +288 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 890 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.
NativeAltay, Krasnoyarsk, Kazakhstan, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, China Southeast, Xinjiang· introduced: New York
Kew's description“subshrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker51.377, 85.984 · in the densest population, 437 records (50% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 878 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 265 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 24 km away. 179 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 54 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 4° block of the 878 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Spiraea trilobataSpiraea trilobataSpiraea trilobataSpiraea trilobataSpiraea trilobataSpiraea trilobataSpiraea trilobataSpiraea trilobata

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Кристина Медведева, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Nina Filippova, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Svyatoslav Knyazev, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

Responses of Litter Decomposition and Nutrient Dynamics to Nitrogen Addition in Temperate Shrublands of North China
Jianhua Zhang, He Li, Hufang Zhang, Zhang Hong (2021) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Nutrient resorption responses of plant life forms to nitrogen addition in temperate shrublands
Jianhua Zhang, Zhiyao Tang, Wenting Wang, Hufang Zhang (2022) · Ecosphere
HunShanDaKe sand east edge of vegetation ecological niche and interspecific association studies
Y X, YuanZhong WANG, G T Li, Ting Liang (2019) · IOP Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science
Effectiveness of Introduction of Rare Plants in the Arboretum of Khakassia
Г. Н. Гордеева (2021) · Lesnoy Zhurnal (Forestry Journal)
Status and classification of vegetation in Labagoumen forest region in Beijing
Guofa Cuo, Cheng Kewu, Guozhen Shen, Lu Duanzheng (2000) · Beijing Linye Daxue xuebao
Characterization of the complete plastome of Spiraea trilobata (Rosaceae), a perennial shrub
Hao Qin, Xinxin Zhu, Xin Zhang, Xuejie Zhang (2022) · Mitochondrial DNA Part B
Plant Diversity Responses of Ulmus pumila L. Communities to Grazing Management in Hunshandak Sandy Land, China
Wenda Huang, Yuanzheng He, Xueyong Zhao, Hongxiao Yang (2023) · Diversity
Analysis of Forsythia suspensa community structure and influencing factors in the southern section of Taihang Mountain
郭佳佳,张雷廷,车建芳,焦海华,茹文明,白志辉 GUO Jiajia (2021) · Acta Ecologica Sinica
Niche characteristics of a Quercus liaotungensis forest in the Lingkong Mountains
Fengfeng Kang (2012) · Journal of Zhejiang A & F University

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 Spiraea 9 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: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
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 68 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.