Crossidium chloronotos (Brid.) Limpr., Laubm. Deutschl. 1: 645. 1888. Tortula chloronotos Brid., Muscol. Recent. Suppl. 1: 253. 1806.

Plants very small, 3–5 mm high, yellowish green with whitish sheen, because of hyaline excurrent costae, in low gregarious or thin tufts. Stems very short, erect, mostly buried in soil, simple; central strand present. Leaves imbricately appressed when dry, slightly spreading when moist, broadly ovate to rounded ovate, concave, abruptly to broadly acute at the apex; costa slender, shortly excurrent as an apiculus or excurrent in a short, smooth, hyaline awn; superficial cells of upper ventral costa forming a group of separate, often branching, filaments; in cross section a dorsal stereid band present; margins entire, slightly recurved above; upper leaf cells subquadrate to rounded elliptic, thick-walled, without papillae; basal cells rectangular, thin-walled. Dioicous. Outer perichaetial leaves similar to stem leaves, inner perichaetial leaves smaller. Setae elongate, slender, more or less straight, reddish brown, 6–7 mm long; capsules oblong-ovoid, erect or curved; annuli differentiated, of 3 rows of cells, persistent or deciduous; peristome teeth 16, divided into 32 linear-lanceolate segments, papillose, twisted counterclockwise, rarely straight; opercula conic, obliquely short-rostrate. Calyptrae cucullate, smooth. Spores small, spherical, yellowish brown, smooth.

Type. Austria.

Chinese specimens examined: GANSU: Lan-zhou City, Xing-long Shan (Mt.), Z.-L Jin 51 (HKAS). NEI MONGOL: Da-qing Shan (Mt.), F.-H. 90–6 (HKAS); He-lan Shan (Mt.), Z.-G. Tong 1860 (PE); Hohhot City, Z.-G. Tong 2558 (MO, PE). SICHUAN: Wen-chuan Co., Allen 7370 (MO).

Habitat: on soil or limestone; Distribution: China, Mongolia, Russia, Europe, North America, Africa, and New Zealand.

Illustrations: C. Gao (ed.) 1996 (Pl. 79, figs. 6–10, as Crossidium chloronotos).