Plagiothecium cavifolium(Brid.) Z.Iwats.

plagiothecium mossround silk-moss

WFO wfo-0001186616 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.

Plagiothecium cavifolium, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. a Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-30 / obs. 193868802

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 84 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -11.0 °C -5.4 °C -1.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.9 °C 23.4 °C 31.2 °C
Annual rainfall 588 mm 951 mm 1,417 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 94 mm 136 mm 287 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 84 research-grade observations of Plagiothecium cavifolium 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 47 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.

  • Hypnum cavifolium Brid.
  • Hypnum denticulatum var. turgidum T.Jensen
  • Hypnum sylvaticum var. orthocladium (Schimp.) Husn.
  • Plagiothecium acicularipungens Müll.Hal. & Kindb.
  • Plagiothecium attenuatirameum Kindb.
  • Plagiothecium boscii subsp. acicularipungens (Müll.Hal. & Kindb.) Kindb.
  • Plagiothecium cavifolium var. orthocladium (Schimp.) Z.Iwats.
  • Plagiothecium denticulatum f. flagellaceum (Warnst.) Grout
  • Plagiothecium denticulatum subsp. roeseanum (Schimp.) Grout
  • Plagiothecium denticulatum var. myurum Schimp.
  • Plagiothecium denticulatum var. orthocladium (Schimp.) Hérib.
  • Plagiothecium denticulatum var. roeseanum (Schimp.) Hérib.
  • Plagiothecium laetum subsp. attenuatirameum (Kindb.) Kindb.
  • Plagiothecium orthocladium Schimp.
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum Schimp.
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum f. angustirete (Warnst.) Jedl.
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum f. basalticum (Podp.) Podp.
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum f. densum (Warnst.) Jedl.
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum f. filiforme (Broeck) Jedl.
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum f. flagellaceum (Warnst.) Mönk.
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum f. propaguliferum (R.Ruthe) Jaap
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum f. strenuum Jedl.
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum subf. propaguliferum Jedl.
  • Plagiothecium roeseanum subf. propaguliferum Jedl.

and 23 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.