Asexual propagules absent. Turves to 3 cm tall on rocks, logs or tree bases, yellowish-brown. Stems simple or branched, brown, tomentose; central strand present. Leaves irregularly falcate-secund, with crisped apices when dry, narrowly lanceolate, 3.5–5.3 mm long, (0.4–) 0.5–0.8 mm wide, canaliculate; apex setaceous, almost entirely consisting of costa; costa weak, percurrent to excurrent, abaxially with scattered teeth toward apex; margin serrulate in apical fifth to half, entire below, plane, with a border of 1–4 rows of cells extending up a third of leaf length, often ill-defined with cells barely longer than adjacent lamina cells; lamina cells in apical half oblong to elongate, 12–30 (–35) μm long, 6–9 μm wide; lamina cells in basal half elongate to linear, 28–130 μm long, 7–11 μm wide; alar cells rectangular, 11–50 μm long, 12–28 μm wide, not inflated, with brown walls, colourless in young leaves. Seta solitary, 10.5–13 mm long, yellowish, smooth. Capsule inclined to vertical, ellipsoid to cylindrical, slightly curved, 1.6–1.8 mm long. Operculum obliquely rostrate from conic base, 1.6–1.8 mm long.
HFE. Known in Victoria from a single 1951 collection from Mount Ellery, East Gippsland. Also south-west Western Australia, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania.
Dicranoloma diaphanoneuron is the only species in the genus to have crisped leaf apices (Klazenga 2003). However, the single Victorian collection lacks crisped leaf apices typical of this species, but resembles typical D. diaphanoneuron in microscopic details (Klazenga 2003). The small overall size combined with its setaceous apex serves to distinguish this species from other Victoria Dicranoloma in the absence of crisped leaf apices. Dicranoloma diaphanoneuron also tends to not grow sympatrically with other Dicranoloma species (Klazenga 2003).
