Plants medium-sized to fairly large, rather slender but rigid, in loose or dense tufts or extensive mats, often hoary, dull green to olivaceous distally, brown to blackish proximally. Stems 2–6(–12) cm, prostrate to ascending, sparingly to copiously branched, often with numerous short branchlets. Leaves loosely imbricate, twisted or secund when dry, erect-spreading to patent when moist, lanceolate, channeled along the costa, (2–)2.5–3.5(–4.7) (with awns) × 0.6–0.9 mm; margins 1-stratose throughout with some 2-stratose spots distally, recurved on both sides towards the apex, sometimes strongly so on one side and usually less recurved on the other side; with a usually long, 0.5–1.5(–3) mm, prominent, erect, hyaline awn, flattened, often decurrent, distinctly denticulate at the margins, often somewhat flexuose and wrinkled and spinulose on the back side; costa percurrent or subpercurrent, channeled adaxially throughout, rather weakly convex on the abaxial side, (60–)80–110(–150) µm wide near the base, (40–)50–65(–75) µm wide distally, 3–4-stratose with (4–)5–9(–11) larger adaxial cells at the base, 2(–3)-stratose with (3–)4–8 adaxial cells in mid leaf and 2-stratose distally with 2–4(–5) adaxial cells; laminal cells 1-stratose, smooth or weakly bulging; basal laminal cells elongate, 15–35 × 8–10 µm, with thick, sinuous-nodulose walls; alar cells not or slightly differentiated, yellowish, sometimes forming a small group; supra-alar cells not differentiated; distal and medial laminal cells irregularly quadrate to rectangular, 10–25 × 8–10 µm, often becoming oblate at the margins in the distal part. Inner perichaetial leaves (1–4) hyaline, bluntly pointed, epilose. Seta brown, 4–9 mm. Capsule brown, somewhat glistening shortly cylindric, 15–30 × 0.5–0.8 mm; operculum with a long beak, to 1 mm; peristome teeth 250–380 µm, yellowish brown, papillose, irregularly cleft into 2 or seldom 3 prongs distally, or undivided, only with median perforations, arising from a rather short, 35–50 µm high, basal membrance. Spores 14–18 µm.
