Phlegmariurus gnidioides(L.f.) A.R.Field & Bostock

WFO wfo-0001334873 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Phlegmariurus gnidioides, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. a Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-04-10 / obs. 187353744
Phlegmariurus gnidioides, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. b Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 175484300
Phlegmariurus gnidioides, photographed by Jeremy Gilmore
fig. c Jeremy Gilmore, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174940933
Phlegmariurus gnidioides, photographed by Jeremy Gilmore
fig. d Jeremy Gilmore, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173579816
Phlegmariurus gnidioides, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. e Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 108888718
Phlegmariurus gnidioides, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. f Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 108793352
Phlegmariurus gnidioides, photographed by flamelily
fig. g flamelily, CC0 1.0 / obs. 103869562
Phlegmariurus gnidioides, photographed by katuchka
fig. h katuchka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 90590389

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 20 botanical countries

Regions where Phlegmariurus gnidioides is native: Burundi, Cape Provinces, Comoros, DR Congo, Eswatini, Free State, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Réunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe BurundiCape ProvincesDR CongoEswatiniFree StateKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLesothoMadagascarMalawiMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesRwandaTanzaniaUgandaZimbabwe ComorosMauritiusRéunionSeychelles
Native distribution of Phlegmariurus gnidioides, 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
Burundi BUR AFRICA
Cape Provinces CPP
Comoros COM
DR Congo ZAI
Eswatini SWZ
Free State OFS
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Lesotho LES
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mauritius MAU
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Réunion REU
Rwanda RWA
Seychelles SEY
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 146 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 2.0 °C 8.0 °C 11.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.0 °C 21.6 °C 25.1 °C
Annual rainfall 632 mm 1,180 mm 1,624 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 36 mm 110 mm 192 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 146 research-grade observations of Phlegmariurus gnidioides 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 13 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 gnidioides (L.f.) Trevis.
  • Huperzia helmii (Nessel) Holub
  • Lepidotis funiculosa (Lam.) P.Beauv.
  • Lycopodium ambiguum Schrad.
  • Lycopodium flagelliforme Schrad.
  • Lycopodium funiculosum Lam.
  • Lycopodium gnidioides L.f.
  • Lycopodium gnidioides var. pinifolium (Kaulf.) Pappe & Rawson
  • Lycopodium gnidioides var. strictum (Baker) C.Chr.
  • Lycopodium pinifolium Kaulf.
  • Plananthus gnidioides (L.f.) P.Beauv.
  • Urostachys gnidioides (L.f.) Herter ex Nessel
  • Urostachys helmii 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.