Plants in loose dark green or brownish mats. Branches spreading, loosely foliate, not curved at tips. Stem leaves 0.9--1.2 mm, rounded-obtuse to sometimes acute or short-acuminate, occasionally very slightly plicate. Branch leaves remote, loosely foliate and slightly incurved when dry, spreading when moist, 0.4--0.8 mm, concave, not plicate, elliptic or broadly oblong-ovate, rounded-obtuse at apex, shortly decurrent, margins erect, entire to subserrulate distally; costa ending 8--10 cells before the apex; distal laminal cells 6--9 μm, indistinctly bulging-papillose abaxially. Seta 5--12 mm, yellow to orange-brown. Capsule straight, oblong-cylindric, yellow-brown, 1.5--2.25 mm; annulus of 2--3 rows of cells; operculum rounded-conic, blunt at apex; exostome teeth 0.2--0.3 mm, yellow, papillose throughout; endostome segments less than 1/3 as long as exostome teeth. Spores 11-18 μm, very finely papillose.

Capsules mature Mar.--Nov. Bases and lower trunks of hardwood trees, bald cypress, pines, and logs, especially in floodplains, occasionally on rocks; 20--400 m; Alta.; Man., Ont., Que.; Ala., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Nebr., N. J., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Leskea obscura is more common in eastern North America. Smooth, concave, branch blunt, rounded-obtuse leaves with erect margins, exostome teeth longer than endostome segments, and an operculum that is distinctly bluntly pointed separate this species from L. gracilescens.