Plants rather small to medium-sized, typically brownish or yellowish green, somewhat shiny or dark below. Stems erect or ascending, simple or repeatedly forked, naked at the base, rounded in cross section. Leaves erect-spreading or more or less falcate-secund, ovate or oblong-elliptic at base, lance-subulate above, concave; margins entire or serrulate; costa single, slender, filling most of the fleshy subula as a filiform apex, smooth; upper cells short, quadrate or subquadrate, basal cells linear, incrassate, alar cells well developed, colored, inflated. Dioicous (all Chinese species). Setae erect, elongate, straight or curved; capsules exserted, erect and symmetric, smooth, obovoid or shortly pyriform, sometimes with short neck at base; stomata present; opercula obliquely rostrate, smooth; annuli none; peristome (endostomal segments) 16, inserted near the mouth, lanceolate, entire or more or less split at the tip, smooth. Calyptrae cucullate. Spores spherical.

The genus Blindia consists of some 23 species worldwide, with most species distributed in the Southern Hemisphere (Africa and South America). Three species are known from Northern Hemisphere, and all of them occur in China. Blindia is similar to Dicranum in having well-differentiated alar cells, but it differs from the latter in having smooth peristome that is not at all split or only slightly split at the tips.

Lower Taxa

• Blindia acuta (Hedw.) Bruch & Schimp.
• Blindia campylopodioides Dix.
• Blindia japonica Broth.