Bryum argenteumHedw.

silvergreen bryum moss

WFO wfo-0001156092 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Bryum argenteum, photographed by Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas
fig. a Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-21 / obs. 199409600

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
2081103
Filed as
Bryum argenteum Hedw.
Det. by
S. P. Churchill 1990-08-01
Collected
B. R. Ramírez P. 1990-04-06
Origin
CO
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 2,022 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -11.8 °C -1.9 °C 8.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.2 °C 23.7 °C 31.2 °C
Annual rainfall 457 mm 828 mm 1,534 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 19 mm 138 mm 287 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 2,022 research-grade observations of Bryum argenteum 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 114 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.

  • Anomobryum alpinum M.Zang & X.J.Li
  • Argyrobryum argenteum (Hedw.) Kindb.
  • Argyrobryum ellipsifolium (Müll.Hal.) Müll.Hal.
  • Brachymenium argenteoides Dixon
  • Bryum amblyolepis Cardot
  • Bryum apophysatum Müll.Hal.
  • Bryum arenae Müll.Hal.
  • Bryum argentatum Müll.Hal.
  • Bryum argenteum f. bulbifera (Torka) Torka
  • Bryum argenteum f. cuspidatum (J.J.Amann) J.J.Amann
  • Bryum argenteum f. humillimum (Giacom.) Podp.
  • Bryum argenteum f. insigne (Podp.) Podp.
  • Bryum argenteum f. inundatum (Podp.) Mönk.
  • Bryum argenteum f. laxifolium Thér.
  • Bryum argenteum f. mucronatum (Hamm.) Podp.
  • Bryum argenteum f. pyriforme (Podp.) Podp.
  • Bryum argenteum f. thermophilum Györffy
  • Bryum argenteum f. viviparum Podp.
  • Bryum argenteum subsp. candidum (Velen.) Podp.
  • Bryum argenteum subsp. glowackii Podp.
  • Bryum argenteum subsp. gypsophilum J.J.Amann
  • Bryum argenteum subsp. insigne Podp.
  • Bryum argenteum subsp. inundatum Podp.
  • Bryum argenteum subsp. pseudoargenteum (Warnst.) J.J.Amann

and 90 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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. 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.