Plants green to glaucous, occasionally yellowish, in dense to lax tufts. Stems 0.5--8 cm. Leaves flexuose to crisped when dry from an erect, scarcely sheathing base, laxly erect to erect-spreading when moist, narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, apex subulate; margins revolute from base to distal acumen, entire at base, coarsely toothed distally, teeth paired; costa excurrent, rough abaxially in the distal portion, spinose in excurrent tip; basal laminal cells thin-walled throughout; median and distal cells 4--15 × 4--8 µm. Sexual condition autoicous or synoicous. Seta erect, flexuose, 5--25 mm. Capsule globose to ovoid, asymmetrical, furrowed, 1.5--2.5 mm; operculum conic convex; peristome double; teeth lanceolate, 375--450 µm, reddish-brown, granulose-papillose; endostome with high basal membrane, segments finely seriate-papillose, somewhat shorter than teeth, cilia present, weakly developed. Spores 20--26 µm, warty-papillose.

Capsules mature Feb.--Nov. Soil or rock, occasionally at base of trees or on downed trunks, usually in moist shady forests; 0--1100 m; sw Greenland; B.C., Labr., N.B., Nfld., N.S.; Nunavut, Ont., Que., Sask.; Ala., Alaska, Ark., Calif., Conn., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Mont., Nebr., N.C., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N. Dak., Ohio, Okla., Oreg., Pa., S.C., S. Dak., Tenn., Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis. (reported from D.C., Del., R.I.); South America (Tierra del Fuego); Europe; n,c, and e Asia; n Africa; Atlantic Islands (Madeira).

The combination of narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate leaves, often crisped or flexuose when dry, together with the elongate seta that typically lofts the capsule above the foliage are distinctive characters and serve to distinguish Bartramia pomiformis from the similar species, B. halleriana. The latter is restricted to western Canada in the flora area.