Stems: ca. 0.5 cm. Leaves: 1–1.2 mm, broadly lanceolate, mostly bluntly rounded at the tips to broadly acute; leaf margins broadly recurved often to near the apex, 1-stratose; laminal cells essentially smooth, somewhat mammillose-papillose on the margins with a single mammilla per cell, more strongly mammillose-papillose at the leaf apex, with thick walls, firm, rounded at the angles, distal cells around 10 µm wide. Perigonium: short-stalked. Seta: to 0.7 cm, straight wet or dry. Capsule: symmetrical, erect, struma small but conspicuous; annulus weakly developed, adherent. Phenology: Capsules mature summer.
Rock crevices, tundra hummocks, soil banks, both acid and calcareous substrates. moderate to high elevations. Greenland, Alta., Man., N.W.T., Que., Yukon, Alaska, Asia (Siberia).
Cynodontium glaucescens is separated from C. schisti and C. alpestre by less strongly mammillose-papillose leaves, and laminal cell walls decidedly thicker. The species was reported for North America by W. C. Steere (1977, 1978) and C. D. Bird et al. (1977); a synopsis and complete list of specimens throughout its range was presented by G. S. Mogensen and Steere (1979).