Small plants, 5-7 mm high, in loose tufts, the lower portions embedded in fine-particled, reddish soil, dark green, almost completely black when dry. Stems moderately radiculose below with long, branched rhizoids, central strand absent. Leaves small below, larger and more crowded above, folded and keeled when dry, flat and erect-spreading when wet, 2.5-3.5 mm long, spathulate, margins plane, not bordered, entire; costa stout, oval, very prominent dorsally, 112-125 µm wide near middle of leaf, somewhat rough dorsally with low, blunt teeth, shortly excurrent, ending in a sharp, elongate, hyaline cell, often broken off; stereid band in cross section ± crescent-shaped, ventrally absent, interior stereid cells relatively large, up to 12.5 µm in diameter, dorsal walls of the costal epidermis conspicuously differentiated by a thick, curved layer of hyaline wall material up to 10 µm thick, guide cells 2-3, mostly in a single layer; upper median laminal cells hexagonal, occasionally septate, 10-13 µm wide, ca 25 µm thick, ventral surface rounded, with 2-5 circular, c-shaped, or simple papillae, dorsal walls flat, thicker and reddish, basal cells rectangular and hyaline, up to 25 µm wide and 65 µm long. Propagula not observed. Perichaetia terminal, inner leaves scarcely differentiated in size or shape; perigonia and sporophyte not seen. Presumed to be dioicous.
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