Plants slender, green to whitish green, dark brownish with age, in deep, compact tufts. Stems 6–12(–20) cm, simple, densely matted with wooly whitish to light-brownish tomentum. Leaves 2–5(–6) mm, erect to closely appressed when dry, erect-spreading when moist; sheath oblong-rectangular, brownish, ± abruptly contracted to the blade; blade narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, flat, with sharply infolded margins; marginal lamina 6–7 cells wide, 1-stratose, entire to finely crenulate above, membranous and transparent, abruptly infolded and enclosing the lamellae and overlapping towards the apex; costa toothed abaxially towards the apex, short-excurrent as a short, reddish brown awn; lamellae bluntly crenate in profile, 5–8 cells high, the marginal cells in section pyriform, thick-walled, ending in a thickened knob, end cells of lateral lamellae ovoid and scarcely thickened at the apex; sheath cells 45–80 × 7–10 µm, elongate-rectangular (5–7:1), narrower toward the margin; cells of the marginal lamina transversely elongate, shorter and obliquely oriented towards the margins, very thick-walled and colorless. Sexual condition dioicous; perichaetial leaves somewhat longer than the stem leaves, ending in a slender awn. Seta 2–4 cm, yellowish to reddish brown. Capsule 2–3 mm, short-rectangular to almost cubic (1–1.5:1), brownish, sharply 4-angled and prismatic, suberect, becoming horizontal when ripe; peristome 200–230 µm, divided to 0.8, the teeth 64, obtuse. Calyptra dirty white to light brown, enclosing the capsule. Spores 7–9(–15) µm.
