Plants: bright green, reddish brown, or dark brown. Stems: to 1.6 cm. Stem: leaves oblong-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, not rugose, 1.5–2.3 mm; margins sometimes serrulate at apex; apex gradually acute or acuminate; costa percurrent; distal laminal cells irregularly quadrate to rounded-elliptic, 6–8 µm. Seta: 3–5 mm. Capsule: 1.4–2 mm. Calyptra: smooth.
Logs, trunks of trees to 8 m, undisturbed hemlock hardwood zone. moderate elevations. N.C.
Of conservation concern. Schlotheimia lancifolia is extremely rare and endemic to the southern Blue Ridge Escarpment. It differs from S. rugifolia in having non-rugose, gradually acute leaves.