Homalothecium sericeum(Hedw.) Schimp.

silken homalothecium moss

WFO wfo-0001183511 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Homalothecium sericeum, photographed by José Luis Camaño
fig. a José Luis Camaño, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-02 / obs. 202884422

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 1,987 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -6.1 °C 0.4 °C 4.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.2 °C 21.5 °C 29.0 °C
Annual rainfall 567 mm 865 mm 1,625 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 55 mm 164 mm 294 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 1,987 research-grade observations of Homalothecium sericeum 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 48 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.

  • Burnettia sericea (Hedw.) Grout
  • Camptothecium aureolum Kindb.
  • Camptothecium lutescens var. robustum (Warnst.) Głow.
  • Camptothecium sericeum (Hedw.) Kindb.
  • Camptothecium sericeum f. fragile (Cardot) Mönk.
  • Camptothecium sericeum var. robustum (Warnst.) F.Bilewsky
  • Eurhynchium sericeum subf. attenuatum Podp.
  • Homalothecium australiense Dixon
  • Homalothecium barbelloides Cardot & Dixon
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. alpicola (Podp.) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. attenuatum (Podp.) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. fragile (Cardot) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. gemmicladum Limpr.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. julaceum (Meyl.) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. orthocladum (Péterfi) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. parvulum (Velen.) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. piliferum (G.Roth) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. pulchellum Vilh.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. robustum (Warnst.) Limpr. ex Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. strictum (Podp.) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. tectorum (Warnst.) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. tenellum (M.T.Lange) Limpr. ex Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. tenue (Schlieph. ex G.Roth) Podp.
  • Homalothecium sericeum f. tenuissimum (Velen.) Podp.

and 24 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.