Bartramia Hedw., Sp. Musc. Frond. 164. 1801.

Plants small, medium-sized, or robust-sized, terrestrial, occasionally on tree trunks or soil over boulders and rock faces, in loose or dense, glaucous, yellow-green or green tufts. Stems erect, reddish brown, simple to sparsely branched, hyalodermis and central strand well-developed (hyalodermis absent in species outside Central America), sparsely to densely tomentose; rhizoids reddish brown, smooth or papillose. Leaves closely or distantly spaced, sheathing at base (non-sheathing in species outside Central America), erect, erect-appressed to erect-patent, or flexuose, crispate or straight, differentiated into a  hyaline, sheathing base and linear, multistratose limb (not differentiated in species outside Central America), leaf limb fragile or sturdy, occasionally leaves deciduous; margins plane or narrowly recurved, serrulate or sharply doubly serrate; costae single, strong, excurrent, sharply toothed to spinose above at back; sheath cells long, thin- or thick-walled, smooth; limb cells subquadrate, short- or long-rectangular, thick-walled, strongly papillose to mammillose by projecting upper and lower end walls, cells at leaf shoulder differentiated, often hyaline and fragile, alar cells weakly differentiated, reddish yellow, rectangular to subquadrate, thin-walled, bulging. Synoicous or dioicous. Perigonial and perichaetial leaves at times to 4 x the length of vegetative leaves. Setae straight or arcuate. Capsules stegocarpous (cleistocarpous in species outside Central America), globose to oblong, furrowed; exothecial cells irregularly hexagonal, rectangular to quadrate, thin- or thick-walled;  stomata in neck; opercula plano-conic or conic-mammillate; peristome double, single or absent, exostome narrowly triangular, papillose below on dorsal surface, dorsal trabeculae weak, ventral trabeculae strong, endostome basal membrane high or low, segments well-developed, split along the median line and each half diverging toward the cilia or absent, cilia rudimentary or absent. Spores spherical, oblong or reniform, 25–30 μm, coarsely papillose, red-brown. Calyptra not seen.