Plants with shoots 10 30 cm × 1 1.5 mm, prostrate to erect caespitose when crowded, slightly laterally compressed, simple or with few branches, green to reddish brown. Stems firm, 225 275 µm; branches terminal, long; cortical cells 14 20 µm with thin walls, medullary cells slightly larger. Leaves imbricate, orbicular, wider than long, 0.8 0.85 × 0.95 1.1 mm, slightly concave, the larger leaves tending to be undulate; margins broadly rounded, entire, emarginate leaves occasional; median leaf cells 22 26 × 25 34 µm; marginal cells 20 25 µm; cuticle faintly verruculose; cell walls slightly thickened; trigones present, occasionally slightly bulging; oil bodies 6 12 per cell, spherical to ellipsoid, 4 5 × 6 8 µm, granular. Underleaves absent or sporadically present on sterile shoots, very small, lanceolate or of slime papillae. Androecia terminal becoming intercalary; bracts in 4 6 pairs, imbricate, concave with an incurved tooth at dorsal base; antheridia two per bract, stalk 4 seriate. Gynoecia (frequently fertile) terminal on main shoot with large somewhat undulate subtending leaves; bracts large, up to 800 × 1200 µm, undulate, similar to distal leaves with small, obscure teeth on margins; bracteole free, large (to 650 µm), lanceolate with 1 2 teeth at base; perianth ovoid oblong, inflated, contracted to plicate mouth with small 1 2 celled teeth or crenulate margin formed by elongate fingerlike cells.

Peaty soil in bogs or among mosses on tundra; w and nw Greenland; n Europe.