Laubm. Deutschl. 1: 604. 1888. Tortula tortuosa Schrad. ex Hedw., Sp. Musc. Frond. 124. 1801. Type. Europe.

Barbula subtortuosa Müll. Hal., Nuovo Giorn. Bot. Ital., n. ser. 3: 100. 1896. Type. China: Shaanxi (Schen-si), Thae-pei-san, 1894, P. J. Giraldi 848 (isotype H).

 

Plants medium-sized to rather large, 1–4(–5) cm high, green to yellowish green, in dense tufts. Stems erect, usually branched. Leaves often crowded, contorted-curved when dry, flexuous-spreading when moist, linear-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, often channeled above, slenderly acute, somewhat sheathing at base; margins plane or somewhat undulate or narrowly incurved, entire to crenulate with projecting papillae; costa more or less excurrent, sometimes ending in a short awn; upper leaf cells quadrate to hexagonal, unistratose, pluripapillose, with simple papillae; basal cells often sharply differentiated, rectangular, smooth, forming a V-shaped base. Dioicous. Sporophytes not seen.