Plants to 15 mm high, in rather dense turfs, green to yellow-green. Leaves erect to somewhat falcate-secund, spirally inserted without obvious ranking, to 3 mm long, about 10: 1, not keeled but with base closely enfolding the stem and well-differentiated from the limb, gradually contracted to the subula. Leaves erect and little distorted when dry, erect-spreading when moist. Cells of subula mostly bistratose and smooth. Alar region not defined but with a few of the cells short-rectangular, 2–3: 1, not at all inflated. Juxtacostal and juxtamarginal cells of the leaf base not differentiated. Median cells near base of limb narrowly linear, to 8 µm wide, about 8–15: 1, thick-walled with lumen: wall ratio 2–3: 1, not very porose. Subula with lamina 1–3 cells wide but with distal portion narrowing to extinction, with those cells narrowly linear, to 6 µm broad, more than 10: 1, arranged in regular rows, thick-walled with lumen: wall ratio 2–3: 1. Cells of costa surface narrowly linear, to 6 µm wide, more than 10: 1. Costa about 1/5 of leaf base but filling all of subula, short excurrent. Costa cross-section at mid-leaf crescentic, 2.5–3: 1 with a well-defined single layer of guide cells, with strong abaxial and adaxial stereid bands and with well-demarcated dorsal and ventral epidermises. Margin plane throughout, sometimes almost erect above, entire or with a few serrulations near apex. Rhizoids papillose, very sparingly produced, to 10 µm in diameter at insertion, pale to red-brown, mostly on abaxial leaf bases on extreme base of plant. Axillary hairs to 150 µm long, 5–6 cells, with 1–2 basal brownish cells and with all cells thin-walled and of uniform diameter throughout. Stem cross-section round to rounded pentagonal, with poorly defined central strand, very thin-walled inner cortical cells, and with 1–3 layers of thicker walled smaller cells in the outer cortex.
Dioicous with male and female plants similar. Perichaetial leaves larger and more sheathing than the vegetative leaves. Seta to 12 mm, yellowish but with at least a hint of reddening, straight, smooth. Capsule curved and asymmetrical with the mouth not oblique and with the urn short cylindric, to 1.2 mm long, 1.5–2: 1, markedly sulcate, usually not strumose. Annulus of 2–3 rows of cells, falling in fragments. Calyptra cucullate, glabrous, covering about 1/2–2/3 of urn. Operculum inclined, rostrate, about as long as urn. Peristome reddish-brown, 400–500 µm long, vertically striate or with distal regions somewhat reticulate papillose. Exothecial cells irregular in size and shape, rectangular with oblique end-walls, not in regular rows, to 20 µm wide, 2–4: 1, thick-walled with lumen: wall ratio about 4: 1. Suboral exothecial cells short rectangular to quadrate with angular lumens, reddened, to 25 µm wide, moderately thick-walled with lumen: wall ratio about 6: 1. Stomata not seen. Spores spherical, to 15 µm, smooth.
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