Turfs on logs, soft bark and tree fern trunks, pale green to whitish green or glaucous. Stem red-brown, with red-brown rhizoids at branch and stem base. Leaves imbricate, homomallously curved to falcate-secund, ovate-lanceolate, 4.5–6 mm long, 0.8–1.4 mm wide, caniculate near base, subtubulous in apical c. 12–20%; apex acute or apiculate, sometimes bearing rhizoids; costa occupying almost the entire leaf; leucocysts rectangular, rarely quadrate, 25–125 μm long, 25–50 μm wide, elongate-rhombic or oblique-rectangular at margin and 50–260 μm long, 7–15 μm wide; margin entire, plane or incurved; lamina narrow, consisting of 4–6 cell marginal rows throughout. Seta 9–15 mm long, red or red-brown, smooth, twisted clockwise. Capsule inclined or horizontal, 1.2–1.5 mm long, curved, yellow-brown to tan, sulcate when dry. Operculum rostrate from conic base, 1.2–1.5 mm long.
VVP, MuF, GipP, OtP, CVU, GGr, EGL, EGU, WPro, HSF, HNF, OtR, Strz, MonT, HFE, VAlp. New Zealand and New Caledonia. Mostly in rainforest, wet sclerophyll forest or creeks or among rocks in drier sclerophyll forest in the Grampians, Otways, Dandenongs and Yarra Ranges, Strzelecki Ranges, Wilsons Promontory and East Gippsland with scattered occurrences elsewhere along and south of the Great Dividing Range.
Leucobryum candidum has been confused with Malesian L. javense (Brid.) Mitt. and is occasionally treated as a synonym (e.g. Fife 2020). Phylogenies based on DNA sequences suggest that the two species are distinct with L. candidum closely related to L. aduncum Dozy & Molk. and L. javense closely related to a group of predominantly Asian species (Oguri et al. 2008; Santos & Stech 2017).
