Plants robust, golden, forming turf. Stems ca. 3 mm wide and 5--10 cm long, erect or ascending, simple or sparingly branched. Leaves imbricate, ovate-lanceolate to ovate-triangular, short-acuminate, 1--5 mm, concave, or cochleariform, strongly plicate, slightly decurrent, margins partially recurved, entire; median leaf cells linear, ca. 84 × 6 µm; basal cells shorter and broader, thick-walled and incrassate, golden brown; costa absent or very short and double. Specialized asexual reproduction absent. Sporophytes infrequent. Perichaetial leaves ovate-triangular, interior long-acuminate, sharply toothed above, not plicate. Seta golden brown, 2--3 cm. Capsule ovoid-cylindric, frequently slightly asymmetric, 1.5--1.8 mm, contracted below mouth when dry and empty; annulus composed of 2 rows of cells; cilia short. Spores 14--16 µm.

Lower Taxa

• Orthothecium chryseum var. chryseum
• Orthothecium chryseum var. cochlearifolium (Lindberg) Limpricht