Plants small to moderately large, sometimes robust, green to yellowish green above, brown or black below, in loose or dense tufts. Stems erect or ascending, simple or branched; central strand well developed. Leaves mostly imbricate, crowded in rows, often crisped or incurved, sometimes contorted when dry, spreading to wide-spreading when moist, linear-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate or broadly lanceolate, sometimes keeled, concave above, blunt or acuminate at the apex; margins erect or recurved, entire to strongly serrate above; costa single, strong, percurrent or ending below the apex; upper and median leaf cells small, rounded-quadrate or subquadrate to rectangular, often bistratose, obscure, thick-walled, sometimes with sinuose walls; basal cells rectangular to linear, thin-walled, or with sinuose walls. Autoicous. Perigonia present just below perichaetia. Perichaetial leaves not differentiated or convolute-sheathing. Setae terminal, short or elongate, straight; capsules exserted, erect, symmetric, ovoid to oblong-ellipsoid, smooth; annuli mostly well developed, consisting of thick-walled cells, sometimes absent; peristome teeth haplolepidous, 16, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, deeply and irregularly splitting into 2–3 filiform segments, densely papillose; opercula with a short to long beak. Calyptrae naked, mitrate, longitudinally plicate, lobed at the base, covering half to almost the entire capsule. Spores spherical, mostly coarsely to finely papillose, occasionally smooth.