Plants slender, soft, 1–3(–5) cm high, yellowish green to brownish green or blackish green, somewhat glossy, in loose or compact tufts. Stems creeping or ascending at base with erect upper stems and branches, radiculose at base. Leaves homomallous, falcate-secund, hardly altered when dry, up to 3 mm long, lanceolate from an oblong-ovate base, gradually tapered to a channeled subulate apex; margins plane, entire or serrulate near the apex; costa slender, percurrent or shortly excurrent, papillose at back near the apex; upper cells quadrate to short-rectangular or rhombic, finely papillose; basal cells rectangular to linear-rectangular, smooth; alar cells quadrate, brownish, intergrading with basal cells, not clearly distinct. Autoicous. Androecia just below the perichaetia. Perichaetial leaves large, sheathing at base. Setae ca. 1.0 cm long, yellowish brown or reddish brown; capsules curved, slightly inclined, ovoid, slightly strumose, somewhat furrowed, not striate when dry; exothecial cells mostly less than twice as long as wide, strongly thick-walled; opercula ca. 0.7 mm long, obliquely rostrate; annuli simple, in 1–2 (–3) rows of small cells, persistent; peristome teeth reddish brownish, 2–3-divided to the middle, papillose and vertically striolate or pitted striolate below on the dorsal surface. Spores 11–16 µm in diameter, smooth.

Type. Europe: “Iserae Sudetum,” H. Ludwig. s.n.

Chinese specimens examined: GUANGXI: Xing-an Co., C. Gao et al. 1614(1) (IFSBH). SHAANXI: Taibai Shan (Mt.), S.-E. Liu 4340 (IFSBH). XIZANG: Mo-tuo Co., Y.-G. Su 963 (KUN).

Habitat: mostly on wet limestone in alpine regions; Distribution: China, Japan, Europe, and North America.

Illustrations: C. Gao (ed.) 1994 (Pl. 105, figs. 1–6).