Plants small, in orange, glossy tufts. Stems ca.0. 5 mm wide and 1--6 cm long, erect to ascending, sparingly branched. Leaves erect-imbricate, ovate-lanceolate, ending in a short, flexuose, subhyaline acumination, ± 1 mm, not to only slightly plicate, margins partially recurved, serrulate distally, costa short and double; median leaf cells oblong-linear, 48--64 × 8 µm; proximal basal cells shorter, brownish yellow; alar cells poorly differentiated. Specialized asexual reproduction rare, by clusters of claviform, multicellular propagula in axils of leaves. Perichaetial leaves ovate-lanceolate. Sporophytes apparently very rare, not seen.

Moist tundra, humus, soil, rock ledges, crevices, 10 to 2800 m. Alta, B. C., Man., Nfld., N.S., N.W.T., Nunavat, Yukon, Que.; Alaska, Colo.; Europe

Orthothecium strictum is distinguished by stems up to 0.5 mm wide and 1--6 cm long, and the indistinctly plicate, erect-imbricate, narrowly lanceolate leaves with revolute margins, ending in a short, flexuose, subhyaline acumination. A single collection (Alaska, Steere 18846, NY) had claviform multicellular propagula present in axils of leaves.