Phaeoceros carolinianus(Michx.) Prosk.

Carolina phaeoceros

WFO wfo-0001201736 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Phaeoceros carolinianus, photographed by Lauren Gillett
fig. a Lauren Gillett, CC0 1.0 / 2020-12-11 / obs. 107122044

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 248 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -16.7 °C 0.9 °C 18.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.6 °C 25.6 °C 32.1 °C
Annual rainfall 521 mm 1,203 mm 1,566 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 65 mm 205 mm 310 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 248 research-grade observations of Phaeoceros carolinianus 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 78 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.

  • Anthoceros affinis Schiffn.
  • Anthoceros arsenei Steph.
  • Anthoceros atlanticus Steph.
  • Anthoceros australiae Beauverd
  • Anthoceros autoicus Steph.
  • Anthoceros bilobatus Turpin
  • Anthoceros brotheri Steph.
  • Anthoceros callistictus Spruce
  • Anthoceros carolinianus Michx.
  • Anthoceros carolinianus var. carolinianus
  • Anthoceros carolinianus var. occidentalis M.Howe
  • Anthoceros cataractarum Steph.
  • Anthoceros communis Steph.
  • Anthoceros crispus Steph.
  • Anthoceros cubanus Steph.
  • Anthoceros donnellii Austin
  • Anthoceros ecklonii Steph.
  • Anthoceros elegans Steph.
  • Anthoceros esquirolii Steph.
  • Anthoceros gollanii Steph.
  • Anthoceros havaiensis Reichardt
  • Anthoceros jackii Steph.
  • Anthoceros japonicus Steph.
  • Anthoceros koreanus Steph.

and 54 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.