Splachnum L. ex Hedw., Sp. Musc. Frond. 51. 1801. 

Plants soft, densely caespitose, pale yellowish green, somewhat shiny. Stems erect, forked below; rhizoidal tomentum dense, branched, reddish brown, cells smooth. Leaves erect to erect-spreading when wet, imbricate in lower half and variously contorted in upper half when dry; apex acuminate; margins plane below, somewhat inrolled above, indistinctly bordered at base by thin-walled, elongate cells; costa single, percurrent or slightly excurrent; upper cells large, pale, lax, thin-walled, irregularly rhombic, basal cells rectangular. Autoicous or dioicous. Perigonia terminal or axillary; perichaetia terminal. Setae elongate, smooth, twisted when dry. Capsules erect, firm, subcylindric, slightly contracted below the suboral rim; hypophysis inflated, turbinate, brightly colored, delicate; exothecial cells quadrate, with thickened, yellowish walls, suboral rim with thick-walled, oblate cells; opercula flat-convex, with a small apiculus; columella slightly protruding from the mature capsule mouth; peristome teeth 8, densely papillose, dark-red, incurved or erect when moist, tightly reflexed when mature and dry. Spores ellipsoidal, smooth, brown in mass. Calyptrae conic-mitrate, smooth, sometimes split on one side.