Hypnum cupressiforme (hypnum moss)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Hypnum cupressiforme, photographed by Susan Marley — fig. a Susan Marley, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-31 / obs. 202260474

Hypnum cupressiforme, photographed by Thomas Koffel — fig. b Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199679293

Hypnum cupressiforme, photographed by Michel Langeveld — fig. c Michel Langeveld, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199400195

Hypnum cupressiforme, photographed by Zeke Marshall — fig. d Zeke Marshall, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199048493

Hypnum cupressiforme, photographed by Stephen James McWilliam — fig. e Stephen James McWilliam, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198930565

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 2,060 observations

Condition	5th percentile	Median	95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low	-7.8 °C	-1.0 °C	7.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high	17.9 °C	22.7 °C	27.0 °C
Annual rainfall	558 mm	789 mm	1,489 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter	72 mm	136 mm	277 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 2,060 research-grade observations of Hypnum cupressiforme 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 155 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.

Cupressina afrocupressiformis Müll.Hal.
Cupressina basaltina Müll.Hal.
Cupressina cupressiformis (Hedw.) Müll.Hal.
Cupressina filaris Müll.Hal.
Drepanium cupressiforme (Hedw.) Spruce
Drepanium cupressiforme var. brevirete (Meyl.) Hillier
Drepanium cupressiforme var. brevisetum (Schimp.) G.Roth
Drepanium cupressiforme var. depressum G.Roth
Drepanium cupressiforme var. elatum (Schimp.) G.Roth
Drepanium cupressiforme var. filiforme (Brid.) G.Roth
Drepanium cupressiforme var. lacunosum (Brid.) Loeske
Drepanium cupressiforme var. longirostre (Schimp.) G.Roth
Drepanium cupressiforme var. subjulaceum (Molendo) G.Roth
Drepanium cupressiforme var. tectorum (Brid.) G.Roth
Drepanium cupressiforme var. uncinulatum (Schimp.) G.Roth
Drepanium scariosifolium (Müll.Hal.) G.Roth
Drepano-hypnum walterianum Hampe
Heterophyllium nemorosum var. borzanum Podp.
Hookeria uncinata Sm.
Hypnum aduncoides (Brid.) Müll.Hal.
Hypnum basaltinum (Müll.Hal.) Paris
Hypnum compressulum Besch.
Hypnum cupressiforme f. caperatum Latzel
Hypnum cupressiforme f. elatoimbricata Thér.

and 131 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
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.