Plants stiff, wiry and dark green to green when dry, softer and bright green when moist, tail-forming. Primary stems to 10-15 cm, tightly adhering to substrate, stoloniform, densely rhizoidal. Secondary stems 10-12(-25) cm, densely foliate, distally pinnate to 2-pinnate and frondiform, more rarely nearly dendroid, circinate and curling downward when dry, opening and orthotropic when moist, proximally stipitate; lateral or tertiary branches common, ± equal, often bearing smaller (less than 10 mm) quaternary branchlets; paraphyllia many throughout stem, multiform, seriate or multiseriate to narrowly subulate, often branching; pseudoparaphyllia investing branch buds, subulate, deltate, or subfoliose, irregularly dentate; rhizoids many throughout stem. Stem leaves distinctly 5-ranked along stem, broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate, ± plicate, 2-3 × 1-1.5 mm; base slightly decurrent; margins entire at base, usually dentate towards apex; apex acute to acuminate; costa strong, subpercurrent, percurrent, or barely excurrent, occasionally sinuate, increasingly dentate distally; basal laminal cells roughly isodiametric, walls incrassate, region filling basal angle of leaves; medial cells more linear than apical cells, 10-25 × 5-6 µm, walls incrassate; apical cells isodiametric to oval-rhombic, often prorate, walls incrassate. Branch leaves similar, usually smaller, narrower. Perigonia to 2 mm, leaves deltoid-apiculate to lanceolate-apiculate. Perichaetia borne ventrally, on secondary or occasionally tertiary stems, leaves short-deltoid to deltoid-apiculate or longer, sheathing, truncate-apiculate, to 2.5 mm. Seta brown, 0.7-2(-3) mm, straight. Capsule erect-symmetric, barely exserted, brown to red-brown, oblong-ovoid to ovoid, 2-2.5 × 1 mm, plicate when dry; operculum conic-rostrate; exostome teeth 16, white, to 0.6 mm, trabeculate, coarsely papillose distally, less so proximally; endostome basal membrane low, segments persistent, white, as long as exostome teeth, narrowly subulate, slightly carinate, basally connate, cilia absent. Spores spheric, 15-25 µm, papillose, pale brown.
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