Plants in small or sometimes extensive tufts, olivaceous, often with a yellowish or brownish tinge. Stems 1-3.8 cm, central strand distinct. Leaves erect or curved, usually imbricate, ovate-lanceolate to ovate-triangular, broadly keeled distally, 1.2-1.7(-2) mm, 1-stratose with 2-stratose patches or evenly 2-stratose distally; margins recurved to near apex, smooth, usually 2-stratose, occasionally multistratose; apices acute or blunt; costa sub-percurrent or excurrent as a lightly denticulate, usually broad-based, and flexuose awn that often embraces a portion of the leaf apex, smooth; basal marginal cells quadrate or short-rectangular; distal laminal cells ovate or short-rectangular, 6-10 µm wide, sinuose, trigonous. Sexual condition autoicous. Capsule red- or orange-brown, short-cylindric, 0.8-1.1(-1.3) mm; exothecial cells mostly elongate, mixed with isodiametric and a few oblate cells, thin-walled, sometimes trigonous; stomata present; peristome patent to recurved, sometimes twisted, 270-440 µm, bright red or orange, densely papillose, strongly perforated with uneven margins. Spores 8-12 µm, granulose or nearly smooth.

Capsules mature late spring to early summer. Wet ground of arctic fens, tundra, and drainage channels; low elevations (0-100 m); Greenland; B.C., N.W.T., Nunavut, Que.; Wash.; Europe.

Schistidium venetum is a distinctive, rather small species characterized by patchy or completely 2-stratose distal laminae, a lightly denticulate and usually broad-based awn that frequently embraces the upper portions of the lamina, and strongly perforated, uneven-sided peristome teeth.