Pleuridium subulatum(Hedw.) Rabenh.

pleuridium moss

WFO wfo-0001160146 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 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.

Pleuridium subulatum, photographed by Étienne Lacroix-Carignan
fig. a Étienne Lacroix-Carignan, CC0 1.0 / 2020-04-20 / obs. 68279733
Pleuridium subulatum, photographed by Rafael Medina
fig. b Rafael Medina, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 3178903
Pleuridium subulatum, photographed by Rafael Medina
fig. c Rafael Medina, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 3178916
Pleuridium subulatum, photographed by Rafael Medina
fig. d Rafael Medina, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 3199200
Pleuridium subulatum, photographed by Zihao Wang
fig. e Zihao Wang, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 184171508
Pleuridium subulatum, photographed by Zihao Wang
fig. f Zihao Wang, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183287330
Pleuridium subulatum, photographed by Étienne Lacroix-Carignan
fig. g Étienne Lacroix-Carignan, CC0 1.0 / obs. 99425871
Pleuridium subulatum, photographed by Zihao Wang
fig. h Zihao Wang, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183287339

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 61 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -10.9 °C -5.4 °C 2.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.5 °C 23.0 °C 31.5 °C
Annual rainfall 670 mm 1,167 mm 1,422 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 99 mm 226 mm 300 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 61 research-grade observations of Pleuridium subulatum 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 11 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.

  • Aongstroemia subulata (Hedw.) Mitt.
  • Astomum subulatum (Hedw.) Hampe
  • Dicranella decipiens Milde
  • Phascum intermedium Bals.-Criv. & De Not.
  • Phascum subulatum Hedw.
  • Pleuridium alternifolium var. flagellatum Warnst.
  • Pleuridium alternifolium var. howei Renauld & Cardot
  • Pleuridium alternifolium var. lancastriense Sull. & Lesq.
  • Pleuridium alternifolium var. robustum Sull. & Lesq.
  • Pleuridium subulatum f. flagellatum (Warnst.) Podp.
  • Pleuridium toepferi Oertel

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.