Plants 0.6-1.5 cm, red to reddish brown. Stems 0.3-1.2 cm, innovations short, not julaceous. Leaves of innovations erect to erect-spreading, ovate-lanceolate to ovate, flat to slightly concave, 0.9-1.4 × 0.2-0.5 mm; margins recurved; apex slender, acute; costa ending in apex to distinctly excurrent, in transverse section abaxial stereid band 2-4 cells thick, 2-5 adaxial cells in 1 or 2 layers; leaves on fertile shoots more distinctly lanceolate; proximal laminal cells 3-5:1, walls thick; medial cells narrowly hexagonal or rhomboidal to rectangular, 12-20 µm wide mid leaf, 2.5-4.5:1, walls ± firm distally. Capsule pendulous, 2-5 mm, neck 0.5-1.2 times urn length; exostome yellowish to brown, to 1/2 endostome length, nearly smooth to distinctly striate throughout. Spores released in tetrads, (26-)28-35(-42) µm, strongly papillose, brown.