Streptocarpus saxorum, Morogoro Urban, Tanzania

Streptocarpus saxorum Engl.

false African violet, false African-violet

Climate known 6 photographs Tropical foliage 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

Streptocarpus saxorum, called the false African violet, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Streptocarpus, subgenus Streptocarpella, native to Kenya and Tanzania. It is an evergreen perennial that often bears flowers nearly year-round. Its "compact" variety has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit as a houseplant.

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

About the genus · Streptocarpus

Streptocarpus is an Afrotropical genus of flowering plants in the family Gesneriaceae. The genus is native to Afromontane biotopes from central, eastern and southern Africa, including Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. The flowers are five-petalled, salverform tubes, almost orchid-like in appearance, and hover or arch over the plant, while the pointed, elongate fruit is of a helical form similar to that of the "tusk" of a narwhal. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family

Gesneriaceae

Described by

Engl.

Native to

Kenya, Tanzania

Wild records

38 in range· 31 open

At a glance

Warmest month

29°C

Feb, mean day; nights 19 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1102mm/yr

10 wet months · peak Apr 233 mm (CHELSA)

Light

29–40DLI

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 tropical foliage plant by the genus Streptocarpus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, November to January and March to May at the habitat (not shifted). Habitat rain 1102 mm a year, wettest April at 233 mm, driest July at 21 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 13.8 °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.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Streptocarpus, which is reliably 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, November to January and March to May at the habitat (not shifted).

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 (837 mm of 1102 mm) falls in November to January and March to May, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 22.5 °C against a yearly mean of 21.4 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 1102 mm a year, wettest April at 233 mm, driest July at 21 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1102 mm a year at the habitat, 837 mm of it November to January and March to May. Wettest month April at 233 mm, driest July at 21 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 738 mm to 1478 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: 29 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 40 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 26, 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 13.8 °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 13.8 °C, the absolute minimum 11.2 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 33.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 14.6 °C in July (across the envelope cells 9.5 °C to 17.3 °C), warmest day 29.2 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 13.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER); the archetype table's minimum for a tropical foliage plant, 12 °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: 64 to 73% 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 26 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	28 / 24–31	29 / 24–32	28 / 23–31	25 / 21–29	24 / 20–28	23 / 19–27	23 / 18–26	23 / 19–27	25 / 21–28	26 / 22–29	27 / 23–29	28 / 24–30
Night °C	19 / 15–21	19 / 15–21	20 / 15–21	19 / 15–21	18 / 13–20	15 / 10–18	15 / 10–17	15 / 10–17	16 / 11–18	17 / 12–19	19 / 14–20	19 / 15–21
Rain mm	100 / 46–144	94 / 26–142	150 / 87–180	233 / 120–288	112 / 62–255	33 / 16–89	21 / 11–69	21 / 13–70	27 / 21–60	69 / 45–157	105 / 82–149	137 / 107–185
DLI	39 / 35–40	40 / 37–42	36 / 34–40	30 / 28–34	29 / 26–30	29 / 27–31	29 / 27–31	31 / 29–33	34 / 33–36	37 / 35–38	37 / 36–39	37 / 34–38
RH %	66 / 61–70	65 / 59–69	68 / 62–72	73 / 66–76	70 / 65–73	65 / 61–69	64 / 61–67	64 / 61–67	64 / 61–66	65 / 62–67	67 / 63–70	68 / 64–71

Each figure is the median across the 26 grid cells holding the 38 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 1901:4371 (-5.075, 38.575). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 11.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 13.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 33.0 °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 26 distinct grid cells holding the 38 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1901:4371 (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 -5.00_38.750, lapse-corrected +366 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 767 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.

NativeKenya, Tanzania

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

Map marker-6, 37.717 · in the densest population, 31 records (82% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 38 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 31 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 11 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 38 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Liliana Ramírez-Freire, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); Liliana Ramírez-Freire, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (3).

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

Protoplast Isolation and Culture from Streptocarpus, Followed by Fusion with Saintpaulia ionantha Protoplasts

R. Afkhami-Sarvestani, Margrethe Serek, Traud Winkelmann (2012) · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)

Protoplast isolation and culture from Streptocarpus , followed by fusion with Saintpaulia ionantha protoplasts

R. Afkhami-Sarvestani, Margrethe Serek, Traud Winkelmann (2012) · European Journal of Horticultural Science

Occurrence Download

GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Streptocarpus saxorum Engl.