Plants in soft, loose mats, pale green to whitish-green, often with a weakly red-brown wash, irregularly branched with the branches prostrate to ascending with hamate coiled apices. Primary stems to 10 mm long with leaves only slightly larger than those on the branches. Branch leaves to 2 mm, 3.5–4.5: 1, somewhat falcate at least near the apices of branches, not usually with a lateral twist to the acumen, strongly concave near the base, with submarginal plicae, ovate-lanceolate, spreading from stem near base but curving upward and parallelling the stem. Leaves only gradually narrowed to the narrrow acumen. Margins weakly serrulate to entire below but serrulate distally, plane above but somewhat recurved at base, decurrent by a strip 2–5 cells wide at the top and extending to insertion of next leaf. Median cells smooth, spinulose and thin-walled, to 6 µm wide, 10–15: 1, not pitted. Basal juxtacostal cells short elliptic with oblique end walls, rather thick-walled and somewhat pitted, to 8 µm wide. Marginal cells of alar region similar to interior cells of alar region. Interior alar group quadrate and opaque, to 10 µm wide, extending 4–6 cells to the interior and 2–3 cells up the leaf. Costa ending somewhat above leaf middle, tapering but not usually spinose at apex. Juvenile leaves to 200 µm long, broadly ovate to almost orbicular, 1–1.3: 1, serrulate across the bluntly rounded apex. Axillary hairs, small, to 75 µm long, 3 celled with two pale brown basal cells, and with all cells of uniform diameter throughout. Rhizoids densely produced, fasciculate on the abaxial leaf base, smooth and pale-brown, to 12 µm wide at insertion, long, monopodially and planar branched. Stem cross-section with central strand, a stereome 4–6 cells thick, well-differentiated from the larger and thinner walled cells of the medulla.
Autoicous with perigonia bud-like and common near the perichaetia. Perichaetial leaves to 2 mm long, serrulate throughout or with sharp serrations near the apex, not plicate, inconspicuously costate in the proximal 1/3–1/2, sheathing at base but reflexed and secund distally. Seta papillose throughout, 10–15 mm long, distally geniculate. Capsule brown to reddish brown, inclined, strangulate but not distorted or sulcate when dry. Urn strongly arcuate and asymmetrical, to 2 mm, about 2: 1. Exothecial cells in regular rows, 25–30 µm wide, 1–1.5: 1, with walls rather thick (lumen: wall ratio 4–5: 1) but with no corner thickenings. Operculum conic, 1/4 to 1/3 as long as urn. Annulus present, of several rows of quadrate and thin-walled cells. Stomata present at base of capsule, but not on raised pustules, short and vertical pored. Exostome teeth to 400 µm long lanceolate with inconspicuous shoulders, about 6: 1, horizontally striate, orange to red-brown, inflexed when dry. Endostome segments faintly papillose, about as long as exostome, with basal membrane about as long as the free segments. Cilia 2–3, narrow and appendiculate. Spores smooth to inconspicuously papillose, 10–15 µm.