Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 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.
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 35 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | -9.2 °C | -2.3 °C | 14.0 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 22.1 °C | 29.2 °C | 32.3 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 732 mm | 1,177 mm | 1,565 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 128 mm | 235 mm | 303 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 35 research-grade observations of Tortella humilis 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 32 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.
- Barbula afrocespitosa Müll.Hal.
- Barbula caespitosa Schwägr.
- Barbula caespitosa var. major Hampe
- Barbula eutrichostoma Müll.Hal.
- Barbula humilis Hedw.
- Barbula natalensicespitosa Müll.Hal.
- Barbula northiana (Grev.) Müll.Hal.
- Barbula northii Lindb.
- Barbula pallidoviridis Müll.Hal.
- Barbula schweinfurthiana Müll.Hal.
- Mollia caespitosa (Schwägr.) Broth.
- Mollia humilis (Hedw.) Lindb.
- Streblotrichum humile (Hedw.) P.Beauv.
- Tortella afrocespitosa (Müll.Hal.) Broth.
- Tortella caespitosa (Schwägr.) Limpr.
- Tortella caespitosa var. angustifolia Paris
- Tortella caespitosa var. longirostris Papp
- Tortella ceylonensis M.Fleisch. ex Dixon
- Tortella eutrichostoma (Müll.Hal.) Broth.
- Tortella japonica (Besch.) Broth.
- Tortella natalensicespitosa (Müll.Hal.) Broth.
- Tortella pallidoviridis (Müll.Hal.) Broth.
- Tortella petrieana Sim
- Tortella theriotii Broth. & P.de la Varde
and 8 more.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- 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.