Dioicous. Turfs on soil, rocks and occasionally on logs, green to yellowish green. Stems to 1.5–3.5 cm long, uniformly foliate when sterile, ±comose when fertile. Leaves erecto-patent when moist, erect to appressed, or with a patent baseand the apical part curved toward stem when dry, narrowly ovate-lanceolate, 4–6.5 mm long, 0.6–1.2 mm wide; apex concolourous or with a hairpoint; hairpoint straight or squarrose-reflexed, hyaline, toothed, to 2 mm long; costa occupying 40–60% of leaf width; margin entire, plane, without a border; laminal cells in apical half rounded-rhomboidal to elliptic, oblong to elongate, 20–60 (–80) μm long, 7–16 μm wide, not or inconspicuously pitted; basal laminal cells rectangular, 37–70 μm long, 15–23 μm wide, entirely hyaline, including above alar region; alar cells ±inflated, 40–60 μm long, 7–18 μm wide, colourless or with brown walls, poorly defined to well demarcated, unistratose. Seta 4–6 mm long, yellow-brown to black, smooth, not twisted. Capsule inclined to pendent, ovoid, 1–1.5 mm long, curved, yellow-brown to tan, sulcate when dry. Operculum rostrate from conic base. Peristome Campylopus-type.
New Zealand. Widespread throughout the state except in the north-west in dry to wet-sclerophyll forest, snowgum woodland or other subalpine vegetation, at altitudes up to 1750 m in sites that receive run-off or are periodically under water or snow.
