Plate 1 figs. a–f · 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.
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.
Native range 9 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| China South-Central | CHC | ASIA-TEMPERATE |
| China Southeast | CHS | |
| Hainan | CHH | |
| Japan | JAP | |
| Nansei-shoto | NNS | |
| Taiwan | TAI | |
| Myanmar | MYA | ASIA-TROPICAL |
| Philippines | PHI | |
| Vietnam | VIE |
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 330 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 2.1 °C | 8.9 °C | 15.6 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 19.5 °C | 26.9 °C | 30.3 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 2,620 mm | 3,961 mm | 4,961 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 113 mm | 369 mm | 789 mm |
It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 330 research-grade observations of Phlegmariurus fordii 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 15 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 fordii (Baker) Holub
- Huperzia fordii (Baker) R.D.Dixit
- Huperzia juniperistachya (Hayata) Holub
- Lycopodium fordii Baker
- Lycopodium juniperistachyum Hayata
- Lycopodium poissonii Herter
- Lycopodium subdistichum Makino
- Phlegmariurus juniperistachyus (Hayata) A.R.Field & Bostock
- Phlegmariurus longyangensis C.Y.Ma
- Phlegmariurus nanus C.Y.Ma
- Phlegmariurus yandongensis Ching & C.F.Zhang
- Urostachys fordii (Baker) Herter ex Nessel
- Urostachys juniperistachyus (Hayata) Herter ex Nessel
- Urostachys poissonii (Herter) Herter ex Nessel
- Urostachys subdistichus (Makino) Herter ex Nessel
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.
- 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.