Plants glaucous to brownish green, usually in tight tufts. Stems rigid, 1--3 cm. Leaves stiffly erect-appressed when dry, erect-spreading when moist, 2.5--4 mm, narrowly lanceolate from a truncate, non sheathing base; margins recurved from near base to distal acumen, entire proximally, serrulate distally; costa relatively slender, ca. 50 µm wide, not filling acumen, abaxially prominent, rough abaxially in the distal portion, excurrent; basal laminal cells thin-walled throughout; median and distal cells 12--20 × 4--6 µm. Sexual condition synoicous. Seta straight, 10--15 mm. Capsule erect, symmetrical, subglobose to ovoid, striate; operculum conic convex; peristome single; teeth lanceolate, 250--300 µm, reddish brown, striolate papillose proximally, smooth above. Spores subspherical, 22--26 µm, warty-papillose.

Capsules mature Jan.--Aug. Soil or rocks; 10--2300 m; Calif., N.Mex., Tex.; B.C.; w, c and s Europe; Asia (Syria, Turkey); n and c Africa; Australia.

This widespread Old World species occurs infrequently in the southwestern portion of the flora area with an isolated occurrence in western Canada. The strict, appressed leaves lacking shoulders and with relatively uniform areolation from base to acumen aid in recognition. When fertile, the erect, symmetrical capsules with a single but well developed peristome are diagnostic. Confusion of this species and Anacolia laevisphaera may occur, especially with sterile material. In the latter the tips of the distal leaves are often divergent when dry, spreading recurved when moist, with the inner basal cells of the leaf more differentiated than those of the basal angles compared with basal areolation in Bartramia stricta.