Dioicous. Asexual propagules absent. Loose tufts or turfs on soil or rocks, dull or glossy green. Stems simple or branched by innovation, 1–4 (–10) cm long, covered with purplish brown rhizoids toward base. Leaves mostly erect-spreading when moist, only slightly crisped and incurved when dry, oblong-spathulate, ovate-oblong or elliptic, 2–3 mm long, plane or weakly concave; apex broadly acute or obtuse; costa percurrent; margin serrulate toward apex or entire, recurved or plane, sometimes with a border of narrow cells near base; laminal cells in apical half rhombic or ±hexagonal-rhombic, mostly 25–50 μm long, 12–25 μm wide; basal laminal cells rectangular, with some quadrate cells. Seta 20–40 mm long. Capsules pendent to erect, clavate, 2.5–3.5 mm long, brown. Operculum conic, apiculate.
GleP, GGr, HSF, HNF, OtR, VAlp. Recoded in Victoria in the alpine zone on the Bogong High Plains. Also WA, QLD, NSW, ACT, Tas and Macquarie Island. New Zealand and southern South America.
