Plants dark-green, yellowish, or brownish, branches not julaceous when dry; more or less straight, dense clusters of brood branches often present in leaf axils. Leaves with apices often wide-spreading to squarrose when dry, wide-spreading to squarrose when moist, 0.9--1.4 mm, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, gradually to abruptly narrowed to short acumen that is often pale or yellowish and almost a hair point; margins entire or faintly serrate above; costa slender, 1/2--2/3 length of leaf; median leaf cells 8--10 µm long, 1--2:1, oval, rounded to rhombic, thick-walled, bluntly 1-papillose over the lumen on both surfaces, papillae occasionally 2--3-forked, basal leaf cells often oblate, apical cells oblong, smooth. Seta 6--8 mm. Capsule ±1.5 mm. Spores 18--23 µm, very minutely roughened.

Capsules mature Mar.--Dec. Trunks of trees, particularly roadside maples and elms, almost always confined to deciduous trees, rarely on cedar, pine, logs, or various types of rocks; 30--2800 m; Man., Ont., Que.; Ariz., Ark., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., Nebr., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.Mex., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Va., Vt., Wis.; Mexico; Asia (Caucasus, Himalayas, Siberia, China, Japan).

In New Mexico and western Texas the ranges of Lindbergia mexicana and L. brachyptera overlap. However, in L. brachyptera, non-julaceous branches, leaves widely spreading when moist, with abruptly narrowed acumens often pale or yellowish, slender costa 1/2--2/3 the leaf length, and strongly 1-papillose leaf cells combine to distinguish it from L. mexicana.

In the northwestern part of the range of Lindbergia brachyptera plants form rather large dense mats on the bark of trees. This is not true in the eastern part of its range where plants seldom form mats of various sizes, and colonies often consist of a single to very few scattered strands growing in crevices of bark or among other mosses. Consequently, this species is easily overlooked and probably under-collected in the eastern part of its range. This may explain the absence of collections from West Virginia and only scattered collections from Kentucky and Tennessee. Lindbergia brachyptera is very common in eastern Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin. H. A. Crum (1956) suggested that this may be the result of collectors in these states having a particular interest in corticolous species or of a deliberate search for this species in mixed collections. He also provided an excellent discussion of the ecology and geography of L. brachyptera.