Diphasiastrum sitchense(Rupr.) Holub

Alaskan ClubmossAlaskan clubmossSitka clubmoss

WFO wfo-0001111178 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Diphasiastrum sitchense, photographed by Timothy McNitt
fig. a Timothy McNitt, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-28 / obs. 203097780

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
3505243
Filed as
Diphasiastrum sitchense (Rupr.) Holub
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
T. J. Howell 1895-08-21
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. We link to the digitised sheet rather than rehosting it, because the holding institutions do not serve their images to third parties reliably and we are not going to show you a picture we cannot actually deliver. 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 sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 23 botanical countries

Regions where Diphasiastrum sitchense is native: Japan, Kamchatka, Kuril Is., Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Labrador, Maine, Manitoba, Montana, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New York, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Oregon, Prince Edward I., Québec, Saskatchewan, Vermont, Washington JapanKamchatkaAlaskaAlbertaBritish ColumbiaIdahoLabradorMaineManitobaMontanaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew YorkNewfoundlandNova ScotiaOntarioOregonPrince Edward I.QuébecSaskatchewanVermontWashington
Native distribution of Diphasiastrum sitchense, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Alberta ABT
British Columbia BRC
Idaho IDA
Labrador LAB
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
Montana MNT
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
Nova Scotia NSC
Ontario ONT
Oregon ORE
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Saskatchewan SAS
Vermont VER
Washington WAS
Japan JAP ASIA-TEMPERATE
Kamchatka KAM
Kuril Is. KUR

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 926 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -20.0 °C -7.6 °C -0.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 14.7 °C 17.2 °C 22.2 °C
Annual rainfall 1,168 mm 2,968 mm 4,449 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 149 mm 299 mm 461 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 926 research-grade observations of Diphasiastrum sitchense 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 5 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.

  • Diphasium sitchense (Rupr.) Á.Löve & D.Löve
  • Lycopodium complanatum var. sitchense (Rupr.) Farw.
  • Lycopodium sabinifolium subsp. sitchense (Rupr.) Calder & Roy L.Taylor
  • Lycopodium sabinifolium var. sitchense (Rupr.) Fernald
  • Lycopodium sitchense Rupr.

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.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

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.