Plants: small to medium-sized, in soft, delicate, thin, flattened mats, white to pale green or bluish, glaucous. Stems: irregularly branched to pinnate; hyalodermis present. Leaves: complanate, shriveled or ± crisped when dry, ovate to broadly ovate, asymmetric, dorsiventral and lateral leaves similar in shape; margins plane or occasionally narrowly recurved, entire or serrulate distally; apex short-acuminate; costa 2/3–3/4 leaf length, ending in base of acumen, divergent, distal abaxial surface smooth; laminal cells hexagonal or oblong-hexagonal, lax, smooth; marginal cells forming border. : Specialized asexual reproduction unknown. Sexual: condition synoicous and autoicous; perichaetial leaf apex short- to long-acuminate. Seta: dark red, smooth. Capsule: inclined, horizontal, or pendulous, oblong-cylindric; annulus narrow; operculum straight, narrowly long-rostrate. Calyptra: mitrate, base short-lobed, smooth. se United States, Mexico, West Indies, Bermuda, Central America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Pacific Islands.
Species ca. 90 (1 in the flora). Species of Cyclodictyon occur mostly in the Neotropics, though they are widespread in tropical Africa. Their habitat is moist to wet soil, humus, leaf litter, infrequently on rock, occasionally epiphytic, from near sea level to 3900 m (S. R. Gradstein et al. 2001).