Plants usually less than 1cm, in loose mats, dark green to brownish green or blackish; leaves erect patent; stems sparsely tomentose. Leaves 2.5--4 mm, small, lanceolate, ending in a concolorous straight tip, convolute in the distal part, with entire margins; alar cells not or only slightly differentiated; basal laminal cells rectangular, firm walled, hyaline, 2.5--3.5:1, indistinctly bordered at margins; distal laminal cells oblique to oval, incrassate, ca. 3--5:1; costa filling 1/3 of leaf width, excurrent in a straight, toothed, hyaline point, in transverse section showing abaxial and adaxial stereids, ridged at back with prominent cells. Specialized asexual reproduction occasionally by means of deciduous stem tips. Sporophytes not known in North America.

Typically buried in white sand in depressions, in open pine and pine-oak forests and open grassland, coastal lowlands; low elevations; Fla., N.C.; South America (Brazil).

The disjunction of western South America--se North America is also found for Campylopus angustiretis, C. surinamensis and C. pyriformis, which grow in similar habitats in white sand. The type material from Brunswick, N.C., is mixed with C. surinamensis, which caused confusion and recognition of this species as a variety of C. delicatulus Williams (= C. angustiretis).