Plants small, gregarious or in dense mats, rarely cushions, white, silver-green, olive, pale green, golden, yellow-green, brown, or yellow-brown. Stems 0.2-1(-2) cm, weakly to strongly rounded julaceous or short-gemmiform, not or weakly branched; rhizoids few or many, micronemata and macronemata absent from stems or present in clusters proximally. Leaves with fertile stem leaves imbricate when dry, erect to erect-spreading when moist, ovate-lanceolate to ovate, concave, 0.2-1(-1.5) mm; base not decurrent; margins recurved proximally, plane distally, or often plane throughout, ± entire, 1-stratose, limbidium absent; apex broadly rounded to acute or rarely acuminate; costa not reaching apex or excurrent, apiculus sometimes present if costa not reaching apex, often hyaline, smooth, guide cells usually absent; alar cells not or somewhat differentiated from juxtacostal cells, usually shorter; laminal areolation distinctly heterogeneous; proximal laminal cells quadrate or short-rectangular, 1-2(-3):1; medial and distal cells short-rhomboidal to elongate-hexagonal or rarely vermicular, (1-)3-6(-8):1, walls thin to incrassate, not pitted. Specialized asexual reproduction by leaf axil bulbils or absent. Sexual condition dioicous; perigonia and perichaetia terminal, leaves same size as vegetative leaves or usually larger, not forming rosette, inner leaves not much differentiated. Seta single, somewhat twisted when dry. Capsule inclined to pendent, ovate or clavate to pyriform, (1-)2-3 mm; hypophysis differentiated or not; operculum weakly convex, short-conic, not rostrate; peristome double; exostome pale yellow or tan, teeth slender lanceolate; endostome separate from exostome or sometimes adherent or absent, basal membrane low to high, segments present, perforate, cilia appendiculate or sometimes absent. Spores shed singly, not as tetrads, 8-15(-18) µm, finely papillose, pale tan or yellow-tan.
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