Species library › Pilea › Pilea nummulariifolia
Terrarium Well documented

Pilea nummulariifolia

Creeping charlie

A creeping, mat-forming Pilea from the Caribbean and tropical America, with small round, scalloped, hairy leaves on trailing stems that root at the nodes. In the wild it covers moist, shaded banks, limestone rocks and creek beds from near sea level into cloud forest. It is an easy, fast groundcover for warm, humid terrariums and hanging pots.

Pilea nummulariifolia
Photo: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
At home, aim for
Day Warm-growingTargets in Plantistry
Night Close to the dayTargets in Plantistry
Humidity Ordinary room humidityBand in Plantistry
Light ShadeDLI and PPFD in Plantistry
No rest periodGrows in the ground

Where it grows wild

Moist, shaded ground: stream banks, rocky and limestone slopes, creek beds, secondary and gallery forest and disturbed cloud forest. It trails over rocks and damp soil.

In the Caribbean mostly below about 700 m; up to about 2,150 m in Jamaica and 880–2,550 m in the Colombian Andes.

CaribbeanCentral Americanorthern South America

🔒 Growing it like that

The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:

✓ Day and night temperature targets, and the limits it tolerates
✓ Humidity band, and how to hold it
✓ Light as DLI and PPFD for a grow light
✓ Wet and dry seasons, and whether to rest it
✓ Substrate and airflow
✓ A step-by-step setup to grow it like the wild

Grow Pilea nummulariifolia? Add it to a free garden and its full profile opens. Pro opens all 38,374 profiles in the library, plants and fungi.

Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 3.0 licence, unmodified.