Plants: scattered or gregarious in usually sparse protonemata, yellow-green to orange-brown. Stems: less than 0.2 mm. Leaves: erect or spreading, broadly ovate-lanceolate and somewhat clasping at base, acuminate, 0.5–1.1 × 0.14–0.43 mm, margins usually ± incurved beyond the middle, entire proximally and distally entire to serrulate. Sexual: condition synoicous. Capsule: cleistocarpous or rarely dehiscing by a ring of differentiated cells distal to the equator, orange-brown, globose or slightly flattened, rarely broadly ovoid, with a short, broad apiculus; exothecial cells in 2 layers, stomates confined to distal half, sometimes absent. Spores: fewer than 100, various shapes, proximal face only rarely concave, 55–83 × 37–67 µm, orange-brown. Phenology: Capsules mature summer–winter, with some capsules persisting through spring with leaves intact or eroded.
In sun or partial shade, unfertilized bare soil, sparsely vegetated turf. low to moderate elevations (0-700 m). Ark., Conn., Fla., Ga., La., Maine, Md., Mich., Miss., Mo., N.J., N.C., Pa., Wis., West Indies (Cuba), e Asia (Japan), Africa (Cameroon). Discussion.