Plants in loose to dense tufts, yellowish green to dark green, dull or shiny. Stems (0.5-)2-12(-18) cm, erect, simple or forked, densely tomentose with white or reddish brown, smooth to papillose rhizoids, these sometimes nearly absent, rhizoids arising at bases of branches (macronemata) and sometimes in rows scattered along stems (micronemata). Leaves usually lanceolate, rarely ovate, proximal part concave, rarely flat, distal subula keeled to tubulose, erect-appressed, erect-patent or spreading, straight, weakly curled, crispate or cirrate when dry, generally falcate-secund, less often straight, undulate, rugose or smooth; apices acute to obtuse, tips sometimes deciduous, apparently a means of asexual reproduction; margins plane to incurved or involute, entire to serrate in distal part, entire proximally; laminae 1-or 2-stratose at margins or sometimes near costa; laminal cells smooth; costa single, ending before apex to excurrent, smooth or toothed on abaxial surface, sometimes with 2-4 serrated ridges abaxially, 1-2 rows of guide cells, two well-developed stereid bands above and below, sometimes slightly differentiated or absent, extending to apex, or ending before the apex, adaxial and (or) abaxial epidermal layers of cells differentiated or undifferentiated, sometimes only a few cells in both layers enlarged; laminal cell walls weakly to strongly bulging, or bulges absent; leaf cells pitted or nonpitted, smooth or sometimes abaxially, rarely adaxially, mammillose, papillose or toothed by projecting cell ends, walls often thickened; distal and median laminal cells short or long, quadrate, rectangular or irregularly angled, proximal cells rectangular to linear, alar cells inflated, 1-or 2-stratose, rarely more, generally orange to brown, rarely poorly differentiated. Specialized asexual reproduction absent or as clusters of 1-6, deciduous, terete, flagelliform branchlets, borne in axils of distal leaves. Sexual condition dioicous or pseudomonoicous; male plants as large as female plants or dwarfed and epiphytic on stem rhizoids of female plants; perigonial leaves ovate, concave, short-acuminate; perichaetial leaves usually convolute-sheathing, abruptly subulate or rarely interior leaves gradually acuminate. Seta solitary or up to 6 per perichaetium, smooth, elongate, erect, twisted when dry, yellow, brown or reddish. Capsule erect or inclined, cylindric, straight or arcuate, smooth, striate or furrowed when dry, annulus of 1-3 rows of usually large, deciduous or persistent cells, sometimes indistinctly differentiated; operculum long-rostrate, straight or arcuate; peristome single, 16 teeth, split 1/3-1/2 their length into 2, rarely 3, divisions, vertically pitted-striolate proximally, papillose above, reddish brown. Calyptra cucullate, smooth, naked, covering most of capsule, fugacious. Spores 12-30 µm, spherical, finely papillose.
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