Oxyrrhynchium

Dioicous or rarely autoicous, synoicous (not in Victoria) or polyoicous (not in Victoria). Asexual propagules absent. Mats or tufts on soil, rocks and tree bases, sometimes aquatic. Stems creeping to arching, irregularly or sometimes regularly pinnately or bipinnately branched, with scattered fascicles ventrally; paraphyllia absent; central strand present. Stem and branch leaves differentiated by shape, size or not differentiated, orbicular (not in Victoria) or ovate to ovate-lanceolate or ovate-oblong (not in Victoria), erect and appressed (not in Victoria) or erect- to wide-spreading when moist, more erect or incurved from spreading bases when dry, arranged around stem and facing all directions to complanate in branches or homomallous (not in Victoria), well-spaced to imbricate, not plicate, not or shortly-decurrent; apex acute, acuminate or sometimes apiculate (not in Victoria); costa usually extending 1/2–3/4 leaf length, sometimes subpercurrent (not in Victoria), percurrent (not in Victoria) or short-excurrent (not in Victoria), ending in a spine or rarely without a terminal spine (not in Victoria); margin serrulate to serrate throughout, recurved at base; laminal cells linear, shorter at base, smooth, unistratose or sometimes partly 2–4-stratose (not in Victoria); alar cells not differentiated or weakly differentiated and enlarged or rectangular. Branch leaves when differentiated from stem leaves sometimes longer and narrower (not in Victoria) or smaller, often more elliptic, asymmetric at base, twisted in mid-leaf; margins often more serrate. Seta rough or rarely smooth (not in Victoria). Capsule inclined to horizontal, curved, ovoid or obloid, with an annulus. Calyptra cucullate, smooth, glabrous. Operculum conic (not in Victoria) or rostrate. Peristome double; endostome segments almost the height of exostome, with a high basal membrane; cilia present.