Grimmia orbicularisBruch ex Wilson

orb dry rock moss

WFO wfo-0001173714 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 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.

Grimmia orbicularis, photographed by Nicola van Berkel
fig. a Nicola van Berkel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-07-04 / obs. 141456643

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 62 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -4.2 °C 0.7 °C 3.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.0 °C 24.5 °C 30.9 °C
Annual rainfall 557 mm 809 mm 1,078 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 66 mm 152 mm 211 mm

It is found where winters bring light 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 62 research-grade observations of Grimmia orbicularis 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 18 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.

  • Dryptodon cribrosus (Brid.) Brid.
  • Dryptodon orbicularis (Bruch ex Wilson) Ochyra & Żarnowiec
  • Eugrimmia orbicularis (Bruch ex Wilson) Buyss.
  • Grimmia mammillaris Poech
  • Grimmia orbicularis f. brevipila (J.J.Amann) Podp.
  • Grimmia orbicularis f. humilis (J.J.Amann) Podp.
  • Grimmia orbicularis f. longipila (Husn.) Podp.
  • Grimmia orbicularis var. bescherellei Corb.
  • Grimmia orbicularis var. brevipila J.J.Amann
  • Grimmia orbicularis var. humilis J.J.Amann
  • Grimmia orbicularis var. longipila Husn.
  • Grimmia orbicularis var. persica Schiffn.
  • Grimmia orbicularis var. theriotii Corb.
  • Grimmia pulvinata var. bescherellei (Corb.) Wijk & Margad.
  • Grimmia rotunda R.Br.bis
  • Grimmia sinaica Bruch & Schimp.
  • Guembelia orbicularis (Bruch ex Wilson) Hampe
  • Guembelia sinaica (Bruch & Schimp.) Hampe

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.