Dioicous. Dense mats on soil and rocks, yellow-green, gold-green, blackish when submerged, glossy. Stems branched by innovation and possibly by forking, to 70 mm long, dark brown, mostly without rhizoids. Leaves similar when moist or dry, mostly falcate to flexuose-secund or ± straight, mostly circinate near apex, subulate from a broadly lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate base, (5–) 6–9 mm long, (0.3–) 0.4–0.55 (–0.9) mm wide, with subula c. twice base length, subtubulose; apex acuminate; costa excurrent; margin entire, plane, without a border; laminal cells in apical half linear, 30–100 μm long, 7–10 μm wide; laminal cells in base linear 50–180 μm long, 7–10 μm wide; alar cells ± inflated, 15–72 μm long, 17–30 μm wide, forming a distinct and usually decurrent group or rarely cells rectangular and poorly differentiated. Seta (8–) 10–16 mm long, orange, smooth, twisted to right when dry. Capsules urceolate or turbinate when dry, turbinate to ± hemispheric when moist, 0.8–1.5 mm long, yellow- or red-brown. Operculum rostrate from conic base, 1–1.6 mm long.
VAlp. In streams, pools and bogs of the alpine and subalpine zone throughout the Victorian Alps. Also NSW, ACT, Tas, and Heard and Macquarie Islands. New Zealand, Auckland and Campbell Islands, and southern South America.
