Plants in loose to dense tufts, whitish green, grayish green or yellowish green, glossy. Stems 1-4 cm, erect, simple or branched, rhizoids on stems below apex among leaves. Leaves subulate to narrowly lanceolate, gradually acuminate, subtubulose distally, erect-spreading to falcate-secund, especially at stem tips, little changed when dry, smooth; apices acute, sometimes deciduous; margins plane or incurved, serrate to serrulate distally to below leaf middle; laminae unistratose; costa single, percurrent, covering 1/2-2/3 of leaf base and all of subula, smooth or striate on abaxial surface, absent stereids, composed of 3-4 layers of large cells, hyaline, nonchlorophyllose cells intermingled with green, chlorophyllose cells, striations or ridges appearing as rows of teeth at high magnifications on abaxial surface of costa (P. longifolium); leaf cells pitted proximally, smooth, walls of medium thickness, median cells quadrate to rectangular, elongate proximally, alar cells inflated, extending to costa, 1-stratose, brown or sometimes hyaline. Specialized asexual propagation absent. Sexual condition dioicous; perigonia and perichaetia terminal; perigonial leaves ovate, concave, short-acuminate; perichaetial leaves with a broad base, abruptly narrowed to a long awn, inner ones sheathing. Seta solitary or rarely 2 per perichaetium, smooth, elongate, erect, straight to flexuose, twisted when dry, yellowish brown. Capsule erect to somewhat inclined, cylindric, straight, smooth, irregularly furrowed when dry, a few stomata at base, exothecial walls incrassate; annulus rudimentary; operculum rostrate, straight; peristome single, 16 lanceolate teeth, divided about halfway into 2 segments, papillose above, vertically to obliquely striate below, brown to reddish brown. Spores 22-33 µm, spherical to ellipsoidal, minutely papillose. Calyptra cucullate, smooth, naked, covering most of capsule, fugacious.
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