Tortula truncata (common pottia)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Tortula truncata, photographed by Randal — fig. a Randal, CC0 1.0 / 2022-01-28 / obs. 177497397

Tortula truncata, photographed by Helen Waterman — fig. c Helen Waterman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 167013815

Tortula truncata, photographed by Tero Linjama — fig. d Tero Linjama, CC0 1.0 / obs. 116807734

Tortula truncata, photographed by Pavel Kacl — fig. e Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 114327229

Tortula truncata, photographed by Grzegorz Grzejszczak — fig. f Grzegorz Grzejszczak, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 126698251

Tortula truncata, photographed by Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas — fig. g Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 115033378

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 318 observations

Condition	5th percentile	Median	95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low	-10.6 °C	-0.1 °C	8.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high	19.3 °C	22.5 °C	27.3 °C
Annual rainfall	583 mm	832 mm	1,589 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter	87 mm	145 mm	268 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 318 research-grade observations of Tortula truncata 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 48 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.

Bryum truncatulum With.
Bryum truncatum (Hedw.) Brot.
Gymnostomum circumscissum Röhl.
Gymnostomum cuspidatum Röhl.
Gymnostomum intermedium Sm.
Gymnostomum truncatulum Hedw. ex Schumach.
Gymnostomum truncatulum var. minus (F.Weber & D.Mohr) H.C.Hall
Gymnostomum truncatum Hedw.
Gymnostomum truncatum var. brevirostre Lisa
Gymnostomum truncatum var. cuspidatum (Röhl.) Nees & Hornsch.
Gymnostomum truncatum var. intermedium Gray
Gymnostomum truncatum var. intermedium Sw.
Gymnostomum truncatum var. minimum Voit
Gymnostomum truncatum var. minus F.Weber & D.Mohr
Pottia eustoma Ehrh. ex Hampe
Pottia eustoma var. subcylindrica (Bruch & Schimp.) Müll.Hal.
Pottia illyrica Latzel
Pottia melbourniana Dixon ex Weymouth & Rodway
Pottia mexicana Hampe ex Müll.Hal.
Pottia physcomitrioides Müll.Hal.
Pottia readeri Müll.Hal.
Pottia sinensitruncata Müll.Hal.
Pottia subphyscomitrioides Broth.
Pottia truncata (Hedw.) Bruch & Schimp.

and 24 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.