Pleurozium schreberi(Willd. ex Brid.) Mitt.

Schreber's big red stem moss

WFO wfo-0001160195 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Pleurozium schreberi, photographed by aga_l_
fig. a aga_l_, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205385824
Pleurozium schreberi, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. b Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204762627
Pleurozium schreberi, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. c Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204543710
Pleurozium schreberi, photographed by Tatiana Strus
fig. d Tatiana Strus, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202883832
Pleurozium schreberi, photographed by Yurii Basov
fig. e Yurii Basov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202707917
Pleurozium schreberi, photographed by Tatiana Strus
fig. f Tatiana Strus, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202882934
Pleurozium schreberi, photographed by Tomas Pocius
fig. g Tomas Pocius, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202418987
Pleurozium schreberi, photographed by Quinten Wiegersma
fig. h Quinten Wiegersma, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203612060

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
2164232
Filed as
Pleurozium schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.) Mitt.
Det. by
S. P. Churchill 1987-02-01
Collected
M. E. Acosta 1985-07-30
Origin
CO
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Where it actually grows measured, from 2,022 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -20.3 °C -10.2 °C 0.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.5 °C 22.6 °C 26.2 °C
Annual rainfall 511 mm 765 mm 1,712 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 64 mm 122 mm 324 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 2,022 research-grade observations of Pleurozium schreberi 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 67 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.

  • Calliergon schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.) Grout
  • Calliergonella schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.) Grout
  • Calliergonella schreberi var. tananae (Grout) Grout
  • Cuspidaria schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.) Müll.Hal.
  • Entodon schensianus var. denticuspis Dixon
  • Entodon schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.) Mönk.
  • Entodon schreberi f. alpinus Mönk.
  • Entodon schreberi f. densum Mönk.
  • Entodon schreberi f. secundus (Arnell & C.E.O.Jensen) Mönk.
  • Heterophyllium brevifolium Dixon & Sakurai
  • Hylocomium japonicum Schimp.
  • Hylocomium laevigatum (Lindb.) Ihsiba
  • Hylocomium laevigatum var. elongatum (Lindb.) Ihsiba
  • Hylocomium parietinum Lindb.
  • Hylocomium parietinum subsp. laevigatum Lindb.
  • Hylocomium parietinum var. crassum (M.T.Lange) C.E.O.Jensen
  • Hylocomium parietinum var. elongatum Lindb.
  • Hylocomium parietinum var. laevigatum (Lindb.) Lindb. & Arnell
  • Hylocomium parietinum var. secundum Arnell & C.E.O.Jensen
  • Hylocomium schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.) De Not.
  • Hylocomium schreberi f. densum Breidl. ex Limpr.
  • Hylocomium schreberi f. splendens Röll
  • Hylocomium schreberi subsp. laevigatum (Lindb.) Limpr.
  • Hylocomium schreberi var. densum (Breidl. ex Limpr.) Mikut.

and 43 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.