Plants in dense, greenish-yellow to red-brown mats. Stems 2-5 cm. long; hyaloderm cells collapsing with age. Leaves erect and little contorted or twisted when dry, spreading-recurved when wet, 3-4 mm long, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, narrowly acute (the apex often composed of scarcely papillose, rhomboid cells), keeled above, sheathing at base, not decurrent; margins recurved in the lower 1/2-2/3 and dentate above, bordered by a single row of weakly papillose cells; costa ending 1-4 cells below the apex to percurrent, semi-circular in section; upper cells 11-15 µm wide, subquadrate, with papillae 2-4, crowded, multifid; inner basal cells rectangular, 45-65 ´ 9-11 µm, in the alar regions often differentiated as groups of yellow-brown, short-rectangular cells with thick, porose walls. Dioicous. Setae 10-11 mm long; capsules erect, cylindric, 1.5-1.75 mm long; annulus of 4-5 layers of red-brown cells; operculum conic, about 0.8 mm long; peristome teeth linear, 310-375 µm long, 15-20 µm wide at base, yellowish-orange, indistinctly striate; preperistome sometimes present, very short. Spores 17-20 µm, very papillose.