Heterocladium heteropterumSchimp.

WFO wfo-0001174664 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 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.

Heterocladium heteropterum, photographed by Helen Waterman
fig. a Helen Waterman, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205720111
Heterocladium heteropterum, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. b Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194830750
Heterocladium heteropterum, photographed by Helen Waterman
fig. c Helen Waterman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126609797
Heterocladium heteropterum, photographed by Jonathan Hughes
fig. d Jonathan Hughes, CC0 1.0 / obs. 189290405
Heterocladium heteropterum, photographed by Helen Waterman
fig. e Helen Waterman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 117362490
Heterocladium heteropterum, photographed by Helen Waterman
fig. f Helen Waterman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205720143
Heterocladium heteropterum, photographed by Jonathan Hughes
fig. g Jonathan Hughes, CC0 1.0 / obs. 189384307
Heterocladium heteropterum, photographed by Helen Waterman
fig. h Helen Waterman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 117362481

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 48 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -7.7 °C -3.1 °C 2.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 16.2 °C 20.5 °C 23.7 °C
Annual rainfall 816 mm 1,251 mm 2,116 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 130 mm 234 mm 413 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 48 research-grade observations of Heterocladium heteropterum 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 10 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.

  • Heterocladium heteropterum var. apricum C.Hartm.
  • Heterocladium heteropterum var. cavernarum Molendo
  • Heterocladium heteropterum var. fallax Milde
  • Heterocladium heteropterum var. heteropterum
  • Heterocladium heteropterum var. robustum J.E.Zetterst. ex G.Roth
  • Hypnum heteropterum Spruce
  • Hypnum heteropterum var. fallax (Milde) Husn.
  • Pseudoleskea heteroptera (Schimp.) Kindb.
  • Pseudoleskeella heteroptera (Schimp.) Kindb.
  • Thuidium heteropterum (Schimp.) Kindb. ex Wijk, Margad. & Florsch.

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.

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.