Plants small, scattered on a deep-green, persistent protonema, dull green to red-brown with age. Stems 0.2–0.3 cm. Leaves 1.5–3 mm, incurved at the tips when dry, erect-spreading when moist, gradually tapering to the blade; sheath oblong, entire, not hyaline-margined, the zone of incrassate hinge-cells at the shoulders not sharply defined; blade lanceolate, broadly and bluntly pointed, appearing turgid and fleshy, entire; marginal lamina erect, narrow, 1-stratose; costa ending in the tip, smooth abaxially; lamellae 25–40, entire in profile, 7–12 cells high, the marginal cells in section rounded, often thicker-walled, smooth; sheath cells short-rectangular; cells on the abaxial surface of blade 14–17 µm wide, thick-walled, longitudinally elongate in the median portion, subquadrate to either side. Seta (0.5–)1.5–2.5 cm, reddish, often twisted below the capsule. Capsule 2–2.5 mm, ± asymmetric, suberect to inclined to almost horizontal; operculum with a convex base and a short, rather blunt beak; exothecium mammillose, the cells short-rectangular, thick-walled; peristome to 300 µm, deeply divided almost to the capsule rim, the teeth reddish with hyaline margins. Spores 13–18 µm.