Plants 0,5--3 cm, in loose, slender tufts, yellowish green to green, not tomentose. Leaves 3--4 mm, erect patent when wet, appressed when dry, lanceolate, narrowed into a short, straight subula; margins entire below, faintly serrate at apex; apex of leaf serrate at back; alar cells hardly differentiated, only slightly larger than the basal laminal cells; basal laminal cells thin-walled, hyaline, rectangular; distal laminal cells short, subquadrate; costa filling 1/2--2/3 of leaf width, excurrent in a short concolorous apex, in transverse section showing adaxial hyalocysts that are 1/3 as wide as the costa, without abaxial stereids, ribbed at back. Specialized asexual reproduction by deciduous stem tips. Sporophytes not known in North America [rare elsewhere].

Open soil in oak and douglas fir forests, also open sand in dunes with Pinus contorta; 80--200m; Calif., Oreg.; Europe; Asia (India, e Asia).

This species is known only from two localities in Calif. and one in Oreg. Although all records of C. subulatus from North America were referred to C. schimperi by J.-P. Frahm and D. H. Vitt in 1978, collections made later in California and Oregon proved to be this species. Campylopus schimperi grows in compact tufts in alpine habitats and differs from C. subulatus by a smooth back of the costa and rectangular, not subquadrate distal laminal cells. Campylopus subulatus resembles much C. tallulensis. The latter differs by distinct groups of abaxial stereids and adaxial hyalocysts which are ½ as wide as the thickness of the costa.