Plants in thin mats, light- to yellowish-green or yellowish brown, glossy. Stems to 6 cm, 3--5 mm wide, prostrate, naked or sometimes radiculose ventrally. Leaves distant, becoming close and loosely imbricate at stem apices, spreading wet or dry, complanate, smooth, symmetric or asymmetric, 1.5--3.5 × 0.8--1.6 mm, ovate to broadly ovate-lanceolate, acuminate to filiform-acuminate, frequently twisted at apex, margins plane or rarely narrowly recurved for a short distance at base, serrulate to serrate beyond leaf middle, serrulate to entire proximally; costa short and double, one branch often extending 1/3--1/2 length of leaf, rarely lacking; cells smooth; median cells 84--156 × 9--12 µm; alar cells 14--43 × 14--20 µm, quadrate to long-rectangular, in 1--3 rows, seldom more, with 2--5 cells in marginal row. Sexual condition dioicous. Perichaetia large, numerous, bracts lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, acuminate. Perigonia and sporophytes unknown in North America.

Soil, humus, exposed tree roots, rotten wood and logs in swamps, rarely on calcareous boulders beside streams and waterfalls; 0--500 m; Ala., Fla., La., Md., N.C., S.C.; Asia.

Taxiphyllum alternans, like the previous species, is rare in North America. It is recognized by distant leaves that are ovate to broadly ovate-lanceolate with acuminate to filiform-acuminate, frequently twisted apices, plane margins and with 2–5 quadrate to short-rectangular cells in the marginal rows. It occurs from only a few localities in the southeastern United States with a disjunct occurrence in Maryland (Montgomery Co., Plummers I.). It too has sometimes been confused with Plagiothecium cavifolium (Bridel) Z. Iwatsuki but all Taxiphyllum species differ from Plagiothecium microscopically by their nondecurrent leaves and the presence of foliose pseudoparaphyllia.