Plants in thin mats, light- to yellowish green, glossy. Stems to 30 × 1.5--3 mm, prostrate to ascending, pseudoparaphyllia lacking. Leaves wide-spreading, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, smooth, nondecurrent or 1--3 cells indistinctly decurrent, 1--2.5 × 0.5--0.9 mm, margins serrulate to serrate; cell walls pitted at leaf base, indistinctly pitted distally, sometimes pits lacking; median cells 30--70 × 5--7 μm; alar cells quadrate to short-rectangular, sometimes rounded to oval and inflated, 17--48 × 12--26 μm. Sexual condition autoicous. Seta light brown to red, 1.5--2.5 cm. Capsule light brown to reddish brown, inclined, 2--3.5 × 0.5--0.8 mm, cylindric, strongly arcuate, when dry contracted below mouth; operculum conic, 0.4--0.6 mm. Spores 12--22 μm.

Capsules mature summer. Coniferous or Alnus-Acer woods, rotten logs, bases of trees; 300--1900 m; Alta., B.C.; Idaho, Mont., Oreg., Wash.; Europe; Asia.

This is a species distinctive by its wide-spreading leaves, appearing in several rows, and its long (2--3.5 mm), arcuate capsules. It occurs only in the northwestern part of North America west of the Rocky Mountains at elevations usually below 900 m.