Plants (0.5-)2-4(-8) cm, in open to compact tufts or mats. Stems red, reddish brown, or brown, rarely yellowish brown, erect, simple or branched distally, not dendroid; rhizoids brown, macronemata mainly proximal, micronemata absent. Leaves green to dark green, sometimes yellowish, often crisped and contorted, sometimes undulate, sometimes spirally twisted when dry, patent, erect-spreading, or spreading, usually ± flat when moist, elliptic, obovate, oblong-ovate, ovate, ovate-elliptic, ovate-or elliptic-lanceolate, or obovate-spatulate, 1.5-6.5 mm, proximal leaves much smaller; base short-to long-decurrent; margins plane, green, reddish brown, or brown, 1-or 2-stratose, sometimes multistratose with stereid band, toothed distally or to below mid leaf, teeth usually paired and often sharp, sometimes single, small, and blunt, rarely rounded or indistinct; apex acute, obtuse, rarely rounded, or acuminate, apiculate or sometimes cuspidate, cusp often toothed; costa percurrent or excurrent, rarely subpercurrent or ending well before apex, distal abaxial surface smooth or toothed; medial laminal cells usually elongate or ± isodiametric, sometimes oblong, (10-)17-50 µm, sometimes in diagonal or longitudinal rows, collenchymatous or not, walls usually not pitted (pitted in M. arizonicum); marginal cells differentiated, linear, short-linear, or rhomboidal, in 1-4(-5) rows. Specialized asexual reproduction absent. Sexual condition synoicous or dioicous. Seta single, rarely double or triple, usually yellowish and becoming red from base with age, 1-5 cm, straight or flexuose. Capsule horizontal to pendent, yellow, yellow-brown, or brown, oblong-cylindric, 2-7 mm; operculum conic-mammillate or conic-rostrate; exostome brown, greenish yellow, yellowish brown, reddish brown, or purplish; endostome yellowish or brown. Spores 15-40 µm.
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