Fontinalis hypnoidesHartm.

fontinalis moss

WFO wfo-0001182106 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Fontinalis hypnoides, photographed by geosesarma
fig. a geosesarma, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-15 / obs. 188317586

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 51 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -14.4 °C -9.8 °C 5.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.5 °C 25.7 °C 30.8 °C
Annual rainfall 645 mm 1,133 mm 1,565 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 64 mm 224 mm 330 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 51 research-grade observations of Fontinalis hypnoides 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 34 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.

  • Calliergonella conardii E.Lawton
  • Fontinalis amblyphylla var. pungens Cardot
  • Fontinalis antipyretica subsp. duriaei (Schimp.) Kindb.
  • Fontinalis antipyretica var. thermalis Boros
  • Fontinalis bovei Cardot
  • Fontinalis camusii Cardot
  • Fontinalis dalecarlica var. macounii Cardot
  • Fontinalis dalecarlica var. seriata (Lindb.) Kindb.
  • Fontinalis duriaei Schimp.
  • Fontinalis duriaei var. integra Trab.
  • Fontinalis duriaei var. pungens G.Roth & Zodda
  • Fontinalis fasciculata Lindb.
  • Fontinalis fiorii Tongiorgi
  • Fontinalis hypnoides f. pungens (H.Klinggr.) Mönk.
  • Fontinalis hypnoides f. ramosa (Farneti) Podp.
  • Fontinalis hypnoides subsp. duriaei (Schimp.) J.J.Amann
  • Fontinalis hypnoides subsp. nitida (Lindb. & Arnell) Cardot
  • Fontinalis hypnoides subsp. tenella Cardot
  • Fontinalis hypnoides var. adlerzii Cardot ex Adlerz
  • Fontinalis hypnoides var. japonica Cardot
  • Fontinalis hypnoides var. pungens H.Klinggr.
  • Fontinalis hypnoides var. ramosa Farneti
  • Fontinalis hypnoides var. ravanii (Hy) Cardot
  • Fontinalis macmillanii Cardot

and 10 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.