Pterygoneurum ovatum(Hedw.) Dixon

ovate pterygoneurum moss

WFO wfo-0001171626 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 7 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 7 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.

Pterygoneurum ovatum, photographed by carnifex
fig. a carnifex, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-01-03 / obs. 174697256
Pterygoneurum ovatum, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. b Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 170110641
Pterygoneurum ovatum, photographed by George Greiff
fig. c George Greiff, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109566092
Pterygoneurum ovatum, photographed by Rebecca Ray
fig. d Rebecca Ray, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 38219962
Pterygoneurum ovatum, photographed by George Greiff
fig. e George Greiff, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 29842490
Pterygoneurum ovatum, photographed by George Greiff
fig. f George Greiff, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 29182209
Pterygoneurum ovatum, photographed by zookanthos
fig. g zookanthos, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 28830241
Pterygoneurum ovatum, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. h Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 170110622

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
04116023
Filed as
Pterygoneurum ovatum (Hedw.) Dixon
Det. by
T. T. McIntosh
Collected
T. T. McIntosh 1981-03-22
Origin
CA
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 88 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -20.8 °C -3.2 °C 1.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.1 °C 24.4 °C 32.7 °C
Annual rainfall 287 mm 627 mm 1,017 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 33 mm 112 mm 176 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 88 research-grade observations of Pterygoneurum ovatum 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 64 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.

  • Aloina pusilla Kindb.
  • Barbula cavifolia Schimp.
  • Bryum ovatum (Hedw.) Dicks.
  • Desmatodon cavifolius Mitt.
  • Fiedleria pusilla Loeske
  • Gymnostomum ovatum Hedw.
  • Gymnostomum ovatum var. detonsum Wallr.
  • Gymnostomum ovatum var. epilosum Brid.
  • Gymnostomum ovatum var. incanum Nees & Hornsch.
  • Gymnostomum ovatum var. longicapsulum Chevall.
  • Gymnostomum ovatum var. mucronulatum Hornsch.
  • Gymnostomum ovatum var. oblongum Nees & Hornsch.
  • Gymnostomum ovatum var. vulgare Hook. & Taylor
  • Gymnostomum pulvinatum Lag., D.García & Clemente
  • Hymenostylium aestivum Lindb.
  • Pottia cavifolia Ehrh. ex Fürnr.
  • Pottia cavifolia var. epilosa (Brid.) Schimp.
  • Pottia cavifolia var. imbricata Schimp.
  • Pottia cavifolia var. incana (Nees & Hornsch.) Rabenh.
  • Pottia cavifolia var. longipilosa Poech
  • Pottia cavifolia var. mucronulata (Hornsch.) Fiedl.
  • Pottia cavifolia var. oblonga (Nees & Hornsch.) Fiedl.
  • Pottia cavifolia var. perraldieri Besch.
  • Pottia media (E.S.Salmon) Paris

and 40 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.