Plants 1--3 cm tall, commonly branched by slender sub-apical innovations. Stem leaves 3--8 mm, relatively few in rosettes, 18--22; margins revolute to about mid leaf or less, apex acute; costa variable, from subpercurrent to percurrent, with slender apiculus, to short-excurrent into a slender hairpoint on median rosette leaves, in cross section with small stereid band, not reaching dorsal epidermal layer because of a layer of intervening thin-walled cells; distal and median laminal cells hexagonal, 25--35 × 50--80 µm, (3--4:1), proximal cells longer, to 100 µm, rectangular. Inner perichaetial leaves with costa variable, from subpercurrent to percurrent or excurrent into a short, smooth to weakly denticulate hairpoint. Spores 16--20 µm.

Capsules mature late summer (Jul.--Sep.). Rare, rich soil, humus and litter in coastal tundra and shrublands or occasionally forests; 0--300 m; B.C.; Alaska; Eurasia; Asia (India, Japan).

This species is found only in coastal and near-coastal regions of Alaska, principally the Aleutian Islands, and adjacent far northwestern British Columbia, and disjunct in the Queen Charlotte Islands. Sporophytes are rarely produced, and many populations consist of small plants that are sterile or only female. At least some locations of this species are in areas that remained ice-free during the last glaciation.