Huperzia javanica(Sw.) C.Y.Yang

WFO wfo-1200067803 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g · 4 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 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.

Huperzia javanica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. a Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-12-15 / obs. 172978546
Huperzia javanica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. b Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 32050468
Huperzia javanica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. c Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172978554
Huperzia javanica, photographed by Eugene Popov
fig. d Eugene Popov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 119625915
Huperzia javanica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. e Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172978562
Huperzia javanica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. f Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 105385138
Huperzia javanica, photographed by Eugene Popov
fig. g Eugene Popov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 119625904

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
03833854
Filed as
Huperzia javanica (Sw.) C.Y.Yang
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
C. G. G. J. van Steenis 1928-03
Origin
ID
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. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. 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 herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 26 botanical countries

Regions where Huperzia javanica is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Tibet, Assam, Borneo, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Solomon Is., Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, New Caledonia, Samoa, Vanuatu China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanTaiwanTibetAssamBorneoEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNepalPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamNew Caledonia Nansei-shotoSamoaVanuatu
Native distribution of Huperzia javanica, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Borneo BOR
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT
New Caledonia NWC PACIFIC
Samoa SAM
Vanuatu VAN

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 320 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -0.5 °C 7.8 °C 15.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.7 °C 25.5 °C 30.1 °C
Annual rainfall 2,356 mm 3,554 mm 4,720 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 89 mm 234 mm 662 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 320 research-grade observations of Huperzia javanica 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.

  • Huperzia indica S.R.Ghosh
  • Huperzia javanica (Sw.) Fraser-Jenk.
  • Huperzia longipetiolata (Spring) Y.C.Yang
  • Huperzia rubricaulis (Alderw.) Holub
  • Huperzia serrata f. longipetiolata (Spring) Ching
  • Huperzia serrata subsp. javanica (Sw.) Satou
  • Huperzia serrata var. longipetiolata (Spring) H.M.Chang
  • Huperzia serrata var. longipetiolata (Spring) S.R.Ghosh
  • Lycopodium javanicum Sw.
  • Lycopodium khasianum D.D.Pant & P.S.Pandey
  • Lycopodium rubricaule Alderw.
  • Lycopodium sargassifolium Liebm.
  • Lycopodium serratum var. javanicum (Sw.) Makino
  • Lycopodium serratum var. longipetiolatum Spring
  • Lycopodium serratum var. minus D.D.Pant & P.S.Pandey
  • Urostachys javanicus (Sw.) Herter
  • Urostachys rubricaulis (Alderw.) Herter ex Nessel
  • Urostachys serratus var. japonicaneotropicus Herter ex Nessel

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. 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.