Plants minute, 1–2.5 mm tall, gregarious or scattered, pale green when young, appearing bleached when old. Leaves weakly spreading when moist, strongly appressed when dry, ovate or broadly ovate to rotundate, 0.5–1.75 mm long, concave; apex acute; costa subpercurrent to percurrent, occasionally excurrent in a mucro, not markedly recurved; margin entire, plane; laminal cells in the apical half subquadrate to rhomboidal, 12–15 μm wide; basal cells rectangular, hyaline. Seta to 0.2 mm long. Capsules globose, 0.45–0.8 mm wide, orange-brown. Spores spherical, finely papillose, 25–50 μm diam.
LoM, MuM, Wim, GleP, VVP, VRiv, MSB, RobP, MuF, GipP, WaP, Gold, CVU, GGr, NIS, EGL, EGU, HSF, HNF, MonT. Widespread in drier areas, but also in dry sites elsewhere, on open bare soil on roadsides, town centres, under woodland or mallee or beside salt lakes or waterways. All states and territories. New Zealand, Europe, western Asia and northern Africa.
