Plants glaucous or yellowish, delicate, in loose to dense tufts. Stems erect, 0.5--(-2) cm. Leaves laxly erect-appressed, occasionally somewhat secund when dry, erect-spreading when moist, lanceolate, acute to acuminate, 0.5--1 mm; margins plane to weakly revolute, serrulate distally; costa percurrent, rough abaxially; distal laminal cells rectangular, 20--30 × 4--6 µm, prorulose at one or both ends, firm-walled; basal cells similar but wider (6--8 µm wide). Sexual condition synoicous; perichaetial leaves scarcely differentiated. Seta curved to flexuose, 0.5--1.5 mm, smooth. Capsule erect to pendulous, globose with short tapering neck, 0.8--1.5 mm, leptodermous, smooth to irregularly wrinkled when dry; operculum low convex, occasionally with a low, blunt beak; peristome lacking but with a low membrane inserted proximally the mouth. Spores reniform, 36--44 µm.

Capsules mature Mar.--Oct. Wet acidic rocks in mountains of southeastern United States; 1200--1500 m; NC, Tenn.; Mexico; Central America; South America; Europe (U.K.); possibly Africa.

This is a diminutive species that can be identified by the synoicous sexual state, the globose, smooth to irregularly wrinkled capsules and the lack of a peristome.