Plants green above, brown below. Stems up to 10 mm high. Leaves 2.5-4 mm long, linear-lanceolate or occasionally ligulate-lanceolate, conspicuously broader and ovate to oblong at a half-sheathing base; margins sharply incurved, occasionally fragile and eroded in rectangular patches; costa with ventral epidermal cells quadrate and papillose, those on the dorsal surface elongate and smooth; upper cells 7-9 µm wide, with evenly thickened walls, bulging at the surface and covered by 4-6 bifid papillae; basal cells differentiated across the leaf, 13-17 µm wide and 3-5:1, with thick or thin walls. Dioicous. Setae 9-13 mm long, yellow- to red-brown, twisted clockwise; capsules 1.5-2.2 mm long, cylindric, yellow- to red-brown; exothecial cells in 1-2 layers, rectangular, ca. 25 µm wide and 3-4:1, rather thin-walled; annulus consisting of about 4 rows of cells; operculum 0.5-1.2 mm long, rostrate; peristome teeth long-ligulate, irregularly cleft, yellow, spiculose-papillose to spiral-ridged, consisting of 3-10 joints, joined at base as a low membrane hidden by the annulus. Spores 14-18 µm, brown, papillose.