Plants erect in green to yellow green turfs. to 1 cm high. Leaves not deeply concave, lanceolate with gradually acuminate apices, to 2.5 mm long, about 3: 1, erect spreading when moist, little changed upon drying, not plicate. Median laminal cells elliptic to elongate hexagonal with walls rather thick (lumen: wall ratio 4–6: 1) 4–5: 1, smooth, not pitted, to 15 µm wide. Basal and alar cells shorter and broader than median cells, mostly quadrate. Margins slightly decurrent by several short cells, recurved to near the acumen, entire below but rather coarsely serrulate on the acumen. Limbidium not clearly demarcated, unistratose throughout. Costa red to red brown, reddened at base, short-excurrent. Axillary hairs to 4 cells long, to 60 µm, with two basal brown cells and 1–2 rather thick-walled elongate terminal cells. Rhizoids lightly papillose, brown to yellow brown, sparingly branched, surrounding a macronematal area which usually has branch stem development from a very early stage. Stem cross-section round, without a central strand, with hyaline and leptodermous inner corticals abruptly transitting to a single layer of only moderately pachydermous, red brown outer cortical cells, without a hyaloderm. Gemmae spherical, red, to 250 µm in diameter, usually present on rhizoids in soil near the plant, often buried.
Dioicous with male plants similar to females. Perichaetial leaves to 1.5 mm long, somewhat larger than the vegetative leaves. Seta light brown to red-brown, smooth, erect but geniculate distally, to 30 mm long. Urn red-brown, to 3 mm long, cylindric and pendent, neither sulcate nor strumose. Operculum short conic. Annulus prominent, revoluble, with inflated and thin-walled cells. Exothecial cells at capsule mouth to 25 µm broad, transversely elongate in up to 3 rows. Exothecial cells at middle of urn rectangular, 2–3: 1, to 35 pm broad, not in regular rows, evenly thick walled with lumen: wall ratio 2–4-1: 1. Stomates cryptoporous, restricted to neck of capsule, round. Exostome yellow brown, to 300 µm long, inconspicuously shouldered, densely to rather remotely papillose, with prominent dorsal lamellae. Endostome about as long as exostome, yellowish with basal membrane constituting about 1/2 of total length. Segments smooth, narrowly perforated along keel with 1–2 appendiculate to nodose cilia. Calyptra cucullate, mostly shed before capsule maturity. Spores to 12 µm, essentially smooth.
![University of California [UC]](http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/common/images/logo_uc_80.png){kind=logo}
