Brachytheciastrum velutinum(Hedw.) Ignatov & Huttunen

brachythecium moss

WFO wfo-0001211434 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Brachytheciastrum velutinum, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. a Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-01 / obs. 195026165
Brachytheciastrum velutinum, photographed by Zihao Wang
fig. b Zihao Wang, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188555939
Brachytheciastrum velutinum, photographed by carnifex
fig. c carnifex, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 182593068
Brachytheciastrum velutinum, photographed by carnifex
fig. d carnifex, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174739720
Brachytheciastrum velutinum, photographed by Martin Purdy
fig. e Martin Purdy, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152090493
Brachytheciastrum velutinum, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. f Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126673705
Brachytheciastrum velutinum, photographed by Oleksii Vasyliuk
fig. g Oleksii Vasyliuk, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 119639377
Brachytheciastrum velutinum, photographed by Krisztina
fig. h Krisztina, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 125331476

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
02858225
Filed as
Brachytheciastrum velutinum (Hedw.) Ignatov & Huttunen
Det. by
L. A. Coleman 2012-01-01
Collected
L. A. Coleman 2011-06-19
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Where it actually grows measured, from 348 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -9.8 °C -5.0 °C 0.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.9 °C 23.5 °C 26.6 °C
Annual rainfall 559 mm 728 mm 1,414 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 84 mm 113 mm 278 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 348 research-grade observations of Brachytheciastrum velutinum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 77 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Brachytheciastrum vanekii (Šmarda) Ochyra & Żarnowiec
  • Brachytheciastrum velutinum var. vagans (Milde) Ochyra & Żarnowiec
  • Brachytheciastrum velutinum var. velutinum
  • Brachythecium collinum f. laxum Kaurin
  • Brachythecium collinum var. idahense (Renauld & Cardot) Grout
  • Brachythecium condensatum (Schimp.) Loeske & Herzog
  • Brachythecium declivum (Mitt.) A.Jaeger
  • Brachythecium fendleri var. idahense (Renauld & Cardot) Wijk & Margad.
  • Brachythecium idahense Renauld & Cardot
  • Brachythecium intricatum (Schreb. ex Hedw.) Kindb.
  • Brachythecium intricatum var. declivum (Mitt.) Kindb.
  • Brachythecium meridionale (Schimp.) J.J.Amann ex Wijk, Margad. & Florsch.
  • Brachythecium petrophilum R.S.Williams
  • Brachythecium pseudoerythrorrhizon Kindb.
  • Brachythecium ruebelii Herzog
  • Brachythecium salicinum var. condensatum (Schimp.) Husn.
  • Brachythecium salicinum var. meridionale (Schimp.) Jelenc
  • Brachythecium subcurvatulum Broth.
  • Brachythecium trachypodium var. subcomplanatum Bott.
  • Brachythecium vagans Milde
  • Brachythecium validum (C.E.O.Jensen) Broth.
  • Brachythecium vanekii Šmarda
  • Brachythecium velutinum (Hedw.) Schimp.
  • Brachythecium velutinum f. condensatum (Schimp.) Podp.

and 53 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol BRVE7. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite. It has no native range either: Kew's checklist does not cover this taxon.