Dioicous. Green to dark green. Stems 2.5–6 cm long, uniformly foliate when sterile, ±comose when fertile, brown, with red-brown rhizoids toward base. Leaves erecto-patent to patent an often homomallously curved when moist, appressed to erect and frequently homomallously curved when dry, narrowly ovate-lanceolate, 4.2–6.6 mm long, 0.5–0.9 mm wide, strongly concave to subtubulose; apex concolorous or ending in a straight hyaline hairpoint to c. 0.9 mm long; costa occupying c. 1/3–1/2 leaf width, percurrent to excurrent; margin entire, plane, with 1–3 rows of more elongate cells not forming a distinct border at the base; laminal cells in apical half irregularly rhomboidal to elliptic, isodiametric to short-linear, 10–60 (–85) μm long, 6–10 (–20) μm wide, not to conspicuously pitted; basal laminal cells rectangular, 25–95 μm long, 5–15 μm wide, hyaline throughout, including above alar region; alar cells mostly well demarcated, inflated, 35–60 μm long, 10–18 μm wide, with dark reddish walls, unistratose. Seta 4–15 mm long, yellow-brown to black, smooth, not twisted. Capsule erect or pendent, ellipsoid to cylindric, 1–2 mm long, straight, yellow-brown. Operculum high-conic, 0.4–0.8 mm long. Peristome Thysanomitrion-type.
Wim, GleP, VVP, VRiv, GipP, OtP, WaP, Gold, CVU, GGr, NIS, EGL, EGU, WPro, HSF, HNF, OtR, Strz, MonT, VAlp. New Zealand, South Africa, southern Chile and the Falkland Islands. Widespread throughout the state except for the north-west in dry sclerophyll forest and woodland, riparian forest or often on exposed roadsides in wet sclerophyll forest.
Scott & Stone (1976) suggested that the fragile stem tips that can become detached and form comet-shaped clusters of apical leaves that occurs in this species is a useful field character for its identification. However, all Victorian Campylopus species can have fragile shoot apices and consequently using this feature for identification has led to many misidentifications, particularly of collections that are actually C. introflexus (Klazenga 2012).
