Plants mostly in loose, thin mats, yellow green to green or rather dark green. Stems prostrate, to 5 cm long, irregularly to pinnately branched. Leaves rather distantly inserted, patent to spreading when dry but erect-spreading when moist, falcate secund at least in part, to 1.5 mm long, 3–5: 1, lanceolate, often narrowly so, lightly or not at all plicate, gradually acuminate with that acumen twisted. Branch leaves smaller, narrower and more falcate-secund than the stem leaves. Margins plane, short decurrent, serrate throughout. Median cells smooth, to 6 µm wide, linear, 8–12: 1, rather thick-walled, not pitted. Alar cells few, quadrate with walls only slightly thickened. Apical cells elongate, not differentiated. Costa extending 3/4 or more but always ending before the acumen, with a prominent abaxial spine on at least some of the branch leaves. Pseudoparaphyllia deltoid to orbicular, strongly overarching the bud. Axillary hairs of 3 similar cells, to 100 µm with no basal brown cells, not offset from leaf insertion. Rhizoids red-brown, 10–12 µm, smooth, densely placed in fascicles on ventral portion of prostrate stem.
Autoicous. Perichaetial bracts costate, acuminate from an ovate lanceolate to lanceolate base with the acumens loosely spreading, cells uniformly long and straight to 25: 1. Seta brown to red-brown, papillose throughout, to 1.5 cm long. Capsule dark brown, horizontal to pendulous, strangulate when dry. Urn to 2 mm, oblong and asymmetric, to 2: 1. Exothecial cells in regular vertical rows, to 20 µm wide, nearly isodiametric, with thick, red-brown lateral walls and with stomata restricted to neck. Operculum bluntly conic, about 1/3 as long as urn. Annulus differentiated, not revoluble. Exostome to 600 µm long, horizontally striate below, papillose above, yellow brown. Endostome segments low papillose, open on keel, about as long as exostome with basal membrane about equal in length to the segments. Cilia 1–3, nodose. Spores smooth to finely papillose, to 12 µm.
| Literature | Bourell 1981; Harpel 1980a; Harthill et al. 1979; Howe 1897; Ireland 1982; Kellman 2003; Lawton 1965b, 1971; Long 1978; McGrew 1976; Mishler 1978; Showers 1982; Sigal 1975; Spjut 1971; Toren 1977; Yurky 1990, 1995. |
| Illustrations | Malcolm et al. 2009 p. 258; Abramov and Volkova 1998; Ignatov 1998; Ireland 1982; Lawton 1971; Smith 1978. |
| Bioregions | CaR, CW, NW, SN, SNE, SW. |
| Vouchers | Inyo Co.: South Fork Bishop Creek, 4.2 miles south of Highway 168 along South Fork Road, Inyo National Forest, Shevock 12544; Los Angeles Co.: Mt. Baldy area, San Gabriel Mountains, Angeles National Forest, Harpel 1328 (pers. herb.); Plumas Co.: Highway 89 about 3 miles south of Crescent Mills, Norris 69938; Riverside Co.: Devils Slide Trail, San Jacinto Wilderness, San Bernardino National Forest, Shevock, Kramer, Hall, & Ward 24085; Siskiyou Co.: Jackson Creek at Callahan, Klamath National Forest, Norris 70497; Trinity Co.: White Rock Road about 3 miles south of Highway 36, Norris 56100; Tulare Co.: Highway 190 at Cedar Slope, Sequoia National Forest, Shevock 14221. |
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