Plants: small to medium-sized, gregarious to tufted or caespitose, green to yellowish brown, sometimes with pink tinge. Stems: erect. Leaves: sometimes dimorphic with vegetative leaves mostly grading into gemmiferous leaves, teniolae absent (teniola-like features rarely present in a few taxa); margins of distal lamina mostly thickened and toothed, rarely 1-stratose, in many taxa regularly bordered entirely or in part with elongate hyaline cells; costa showing two bands of stereids in cross section; medial leaf cells isodiametric. : Specialized asexual reproduction by gemmae common on often modified leaves, borne on apices or adaxially and sometimes abaxially along costa of distal lamina, clavate-fusiform or filamentous. Sexual: condition mostly dioicous, rarely apparently monoicous. Seta: single, rarely 2–3 per perichaetium. Capsule: mostly exserted, sometimes immersed, mostly cylindric; peristome present or absent. Calyptra: deciduous, mostly cucullate, rarely conic-mitrate. Worldwide except Antarctica, mostly tropical and subtropical regions.
Species ca. 80–90 (6 in the flora). Syrrhopodon is characterized by its erect stems, leaves bordered with hyaline cells or with thickened and toothed margins, cancellinae, and mostly cucullate calyptra. It differs consistently from Calymperes in the latter character. Gemmae are not as uniformly present in species of Syrrhopodon as in Calymperes.