Dioicous. Asexual reproduction occasionally by clavate propagule in leaf axils. Turfs, tufts or cushions, greenish brown or blackish-green, on rock or soil, often in or near streams. Stems branching irregularly, 20–80 mm long, brown to dark brown, often denuded of leaves toward base. Leaves erecto-patent when moist, incurved and spreading or loosely appressed when dry, ligulate-lanceolate, 2–4.5 mm long, broadly caniculate in apical half, concave or plane near base; apex broadly rounded to occasionally bluntly acute, somewhat cucullate; costa subpercurrent; margin entire, plane to erect toward apex, recurved in basal quarter, with c. 4 rows of enlarged cells forming an intramarginal border in basal third or half or sometimes without a border; laminal cells in apical half irregularly hexagonal, isodiametric, 8–13 μm wide, smooth, with orange KOH reaction; basal laminal cells differentiated across leaf from intramarginal border to costa, rhomboidal to rectangular, c. 15 μm wide, 3–4 times longer than wide, quadrate or shortly oblong at margin, longer, narrower and often coloured in intramarginal border. Seta 10–20 mm long, dark brown, twisted clockwise near capsule. Capsule urceolate to short-ovoid, 1.2–2 mm long, dark brown. Operculum oblique-rostrate, c. 2 mm long. Peristome of 16 teeth, cleft 2–3 times halfway or to base, colourless or yellowish.
GleP, VVP, Gold, CVU, OtR, VAlp. In streams and waterfalls in central and south-west parts of the state. Also NSW and Tas. New Guinea, New Zealand and Auckland, Chatham and Macquarie Islands.
