Plants 0.5-3 cm, in loose tufts, light green, young plants forming low rosettes, older plants taller, with a stem arising from the rosette with densely appressed leaves, ending in a comal tuft that consists of perichaetia or produces brood leaves. Leaves 4-7 mm, narrow lanceolate, narrowed to a short (in stem leaves) or long (in rosette and comal leaves) serrate subula; alar cells sometimes well developed, forming reddish or hyaline auricles, sometimes not much differentiated; basal laminal cells of appressed stem leaves more or less thick-walled, of comal leaves thin-walled, narrower at margins, forming an indistinct small border; distal laminal cells short to long-rectangular or oblique, 2-5:1; costa filling half of the leaf width, excurrent in a serrate awn that is subhyaline in the comal leaves, in transverse section with adaxial hyalocysts and abaxial groups of stereids, abaxially ribbed. Specialized asexual reproduction by small hooked or boomerang-shaped leaves (similar to those of C. fragilis) in axils of comal leaves. Sporophytes not seen in North America.
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