Sphagnum cristatumHampe

WFO wfo-0001185676 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Sphagnum cristatum, photographed by Kathy Warburton
fig. a Kathy Warburton, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-03-20 / obs. 117577684
Sphagnum cristatum, photographed by Uwe Schneehagen
fig. b Uwe Schneehagen, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 111940787
Sphagnum cristatum, photographed by Joe Dillon
fig. c Joe Dillon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 106630077
Sphagnum cristatum, photographed by Paul Bell-Butler
fig. d Paul Bell-Butler, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 66235571
Sphagnum cristatum, photographed by zultin
fig. e zultin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 9520216
Sphagnum cristatum, photographed by Peter de Lange
fig. f Peter de Lange, CC0 1.0 / obs. 7941936
Sphagnum cristatum, photographed by Brett Sandford
fig. g Brett Sandford, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 7811996
Sphagnum cristatum, photographed by Brett Sandford
fig. h Brett Sandford, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 7769449

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 199 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -4.3 °C 0.7 °C 6.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 14.6 °C 18.1 °C 23.5 °C
Annual rainfall 941 mm 1,801 mm 5,095 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 182 mm 358 mm 1,080 mm

It is found where winters bring light 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 199 research-grade observations of Sphagnum cristatum 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 15 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.

  • Sphagnum australe Schimp.
  • Sphagnum cymbophylloides Warnst.
  • Sphagnum decipiens Warnst.
  • Sphagnum decipiens var. obovatum Warnst.
  • Sphagnum decipiens var. rotundatum Warnst.
  • Sphagnum dielsianum Warnst.
  • Sphagnum leionotum Müll.Hal.
  • Sphagnum maximum Warnst.
  • Sphagnum maximum var. squarrosulum Warnst.
  • Sphagnum microcephalum Müll.Hal.
  • Sphagnum otagoense Warnst.
  • Sphagnum pseudomedium Warnst.
  • Sphagnum wardellense Warnst.
  • Sphagnum whiteleggei Müll.Hal.
  • Sphagnum wilcoxii Müll.Hal.

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.

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.