Plants green to brown, sometimes with a reddish or rosy tinge in exposed sites. Robust shoots rigid, 2.0-3.5 mm wide. Stems 0.25-0.35 mm in diameter. Leaves 1.7-2.0 mm long, strongly recurved, imbricate, triangular-ovate, asymmetric, with strongly arched auriculate dorsal base often widely crossing the stem, with a 'hooked' insertion, the dorsal margin arched, the ventral margin straight or concave; leaf apex narrow, tridentate, often with some secondary denticulation. Cells near leaf apex 18-24 µm in diameter, in mid-leaf 18-20 µm wide x 20-30 µm long, at base 18-25 µm wide x 30-45 µm long, the walls brown, trigones large, nodulose; cuticle verrucose; oil bodies Bazzania-type, 3-7 per cell. Underleaves large, oval or orbicular, 2-3.5 x as wide as the insertion arched, the apex entire or variably and indistinctly notched or toothed. Shade forms smaller with narrower, less recurved leaves, the dorsal base not auriculate or crossing the stem, the insertion not arched; underleaves smaller, their bases not cordate.
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