Plants slender, ca. 1.0 cm high, yellowish green to golden yellow, not shining, in dense tufts. Stems erect, simple or branched, sparsely radiculose below. Leaves flexuose, falcate-secund, 5–6 mm long, suddenly narrowed from an ovate base to a long, lanceolate, keeled-concave subula; margins plane, minutely denticulate above; costa flat, ca. 150 µm wide at leaf base, long-excurrent; upper leaf cells narrowly rectangular to linear, obscure; basal leaf cells rectangular, ca. 10 µm wide, pellucid. Autoicous. Perichaetial leaves strongly sheathing at base, suddenly elongate to a slenderly tapering and denticulate subula. Setae thin and slender, orange-red, ca. 5 cm long; capsules inclined, ovoid-cylindric, ca. 3 mm long, asymmetric, narrowed at the mouth, blackish brown, smooth; opercula obliquely conic-rostrate, ca. 0.75 mm long; peristome teeth ca. 170 µm long, dark brown, densely papillose; basal membrane ca. 50 µm high. Spores 12–15 µm in diameter, dark brown, smooth.

Type. China: Kweichow (Guizhou), Hui Hsiang-ping, alt. 1,500 m, on soil, S.-Y. Cheo 835 (holotype FH).

Habitat: on soil; Distribution: endemic to China.

Bartram (1935) suggested that with somewhat the general appearance of D. pallidum (Hedw.) Hampe this species differs from the latter in several important particulars. The setae are in deep orange-red color, the leaves are abruptly narrowed from a short base, and the capsules are practically smooth when dry and empty.

Illustrations: Bartram 1935 (Fig. 1).