Plants small to medium-sized, tufted. Stems rounded-pentagonal in section; hyaloderm usually present. Leaves ligulate to lanceolate, acute or rounded, occasionally cucullate, usually mucronate; margins plane or erect; costa usually excurrent as a sharp mucro, with 2 stereid bands, usually with a differentiated ventral epidermis; upper cells subquadrate to rounded-hexagonal or shortly rectangular, with crowded bifid or compound, multifid papillae; basal cells differentiated across the leaf, usually thick-walled. Perichaetia terminal. Setae elongate; capsules cylindric to ellipsoid; annulus consisting of vesiculose cells, rarely revoluble; operculum conic to rostrate; peristome teeth 16, straight or occasionally weakly twisted, rudimentary to elongate, variously cleft or perforate, usually rising from a basal membrane.