Plants in loose to dense tufts, yellow green or reddish. Stems 1--5 cm. Leaves imbricate when dry or with distal leaves divaricate, spreading to recurved when moist, narrowly ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, 2--6.5 mm; margins coarsely doubly serrate distally; costa excurrent to long-excurrent, rough on back; distal cells 2-stratose toward costa and 3--4 stratose at margins, short-rectangular to linear, to 45 × 3--7 µm, prorulose at both ends, basal cells subquadrate, grading to short-rectangular toward margins, to 20 µm × 10--12 µm. [Seta 2--8 mm, straight, reddish. Capsule subglobose to ovoid, 2--3 mm; operculum low conic; peristome none. Spores 23--28 µm.]

Dry to moist soil, often in rock crevices or on talus slopes; 1000--1650 m; s Ariz., Colo, N.Mex.; Mexico; West Indies; Central America; South America; Asia; Africa.

The prominently prorulose leaf cells and the well differentiated cells of the leaf base distinguish this species from A. menziesii. When sterile, Bartramia stricta may be mistaken for A. laevisphaera.