[6] Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus has a circumpolar distribution in the Northern Hemisphere,[5] being found across much of Eurasia, and parts of North America, including British Columbia, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Newfoundland and Labrador and Greenland.

[8] The first specimen to be collected in the Southern Hemisphere was taken in 1974 in Dundas Creek, western Tasmania, but the first published record came the following year, from a golf course in Dunedin on New Zealand's South Island.

It grows most conspicuously in heavily grazed pastures and on the regularly mown fairways on golf courses,[6] and is the most common moss found in lawns in the United Kingdom.

[7] Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus was formally named (as Hypnum squarrosum) by Johann Hedwig in his 1801 work Species Muscorum,[1] which is considered the starting point for the nomenclature of most mosses.

[10] Although R. squarrosus and R. subpinnatus have sometimes been considered varieties of a single species, particularly by botanists from the United States,[1] studies using microsatellites show them to be separate.