Racomitrium lanuginosum has a circumpolar distribution in the Northern Hemisphere, and is found disjunctly in the mountains of the tropics and the Southern Hemisphere [REF].
In the Atlantic Ocean, isolated population occur on Azores, the Canary Islands, Madeira, Tristan da Cunha and South Georgia; it also occurs on Réunion in the Indian Ocean, in New Zealand, Hawaii and the sub-Antarctic islands Deception Island, Kerguelen, Îles Crozet, Heard Island and the Prince Edward Islands [REF].