Pleuridium Rabenh., Mant. Musc. 10. 1819.

Plants very small, 2-4 mm tall, forming short tufts, light or yellowish green. Stems erect, short, few branched by innovations. Leaves erect to erect-spreading wet or dry, smaller and ± distant below, crowded above, short to long subulate from an ovate base; costae single, short to rather long excurrent; laminal cells narrowly elongate, smooth. Autoicous. Perichaetia terminal; leaves larger, oblong-narrowly lanceolate. Capsules immersed, cleistocarpous, globose to ellipsoid-rounded; exothecial cells large, short to elongate; opercula and peristome absent. Calyptrae cucullate? or short mitrate. Spores forming tetrads or not, densely papillose.