Plants gregarious, small, dull, often encrusted with soil. Stems to 1 cm but mostly much shorter, distal cell of axillary hairs swollen, somewhat asymmetric, colorless, often encrusted. Leaves soft, commonly shriveled when dry, rarely uncontorted or nearly so, 0.6-0.8 mm, oblong to obovate or spatulate, sometimes decurrent from costa and margins, margins plane, or a little recurved proximally; costa weak to strong, 1/2 leaf length to nearly percurrent, sometimes spurred or forked, or both, distally. Specialized asexual reproduction by gemmae on axillary rhizoids, rare; rhizoid tubers inconspicuous, of several bulging cells in linear arrangement.