Plants minute, to 2 mm high, dull to blackish, in scattered tufts or gregarious. Stems very short, simple; central strand absent. Leaves crowded in a rosulate turf, ligulate, or oblong, rounded-obtuse at the apex; margins plane to erect-incurved, crenulate in the upper half by projecting papillae; costa rather wide and flattened below, thin above, ending below the apex; upper leaf cells round-hexagonal, thick-walled, mammillose-bulging; basal cells sharply differentiated, rectangular, inflated, hyaline, thin-walled. Dioicous. Perichaetial leaves sheathing at the base. Setae ca. 4–5 mm long, red-orange; capsules erect, cylindrical, symmetric; annuli well developed, persistent; opercula conic-rostrate with a long beak; peristomes variable, absent, rudimentary, or linear. Calyptrae cucullate, smooth. Spores small, spherical, light brown, smooth.

Lower Taxon

• Luisierella barbula (Schwaegr.) Steere