Plants small to medium-sized, to 2.5 cm high, bright to dark green, in dense tufts. Stems erect, simple or rarely branched; central strand weakly differentiated. Leaves often crowded at stem tips, strongly crisped when dry, spreading when moist, linear-lanceolate, of nearly equal width to the base, 3–5 mm x 0.25–0.35 mm, somewhat falcate, narrowly acuminate toward apex; margins plane, entire; costa rather stout, shortly excurrent or sometimes percurrent; in cross section 2 stereid bands present; upper leaf cells small, irregularly short-rectangular or sometimes transversely elliptic, ca. 5–7 µm x 5 µm, thick-walled, distinctly papillose, papillae often multifid; basal cells enlarged, irregularly rectangular, smooth, yellowish to somewhat hyaline. Dioicous. Sporophytes not seen.

Lower Taxon

• Tuerckheimia svihlae (Bartr.) Zand.