Stems stems yellow or green, rather pale, brown proximally, yellow in KOH, to 1 cm, not to few-branched, tomentum usually conspicuous. Leaves irregularly twisted and incurved when dry; majority of leaf apices obtuse, strongly cucullate, mucro of 1-3 cells; with cross section with adaxial and abaxial superficial walls the same width as the cross-walls; leaf cells 10-12 µm, papillae not elevated.
Spores mature spring (late May). Exposed calcareous silt, sand or other loosely consolidated substrates where it functions as a pioneer species; frequently near bodies of inland fresh water, gravel bars, among pebbles on river banks, mud flats, sand dunes on the Great Lakes, also gravel pits near bogs and sandy clearings in mixed deciduous woods or spruce-pine groves, highway ditches; low to high elevations (200-1900 m); Alta., B.C., N.W.T., Ont., Que., Yukon; Alaska, Iowa, Mich., Minn., Mont., Ohio; South America; Europe; Asia; Africa; Australia.
Variety inclinata, var. densa, and Tortella rigens are very similar in their tubulose and frequently cucullate leaves, and the groove of elongate, smooth cells on the adaxial surface of the costa extending throughout the leaf. In North America, var. inclinata appears to be restricted to calcareous silt, typically where streams flood (W. C. Steere 1978). It also inhabits larger sediments, such as the coarse sands along the Great Lakes beaches and rivers. It characterizes areas in flood zones lower than those of var. densa, which also colonizes sandy soil, but in the crevices of rocks in hilly stations. Tortella humilis, which might possibly be confused with these varieties, has a distinct stem central strand. The strikingly differentiated perichaetial leaves of var. inclinata occur only in association with fertilized archegonia. In var. inclinata the setaceous perichaetial leaves may be conspicuous on dry stems where they rise more stiffly above the curled stem leaves-as is true of those of T. alpicola, T. fragilis and T. tortuosa. Such perichaetiate plants, though uncommon, are easy to confuse with sterile or fertile T. fragilis, but the setaceous leaves of that species have propaguloid modifications in the apex whether barren or fertile.
Plants: dull yellow-green to yellowish brown distally, brown proximally, elongate, not rosulate. Stems: 0.5–1(–1.5) cm, central strand absent; stem sparsely rufous radiculose-tomentose at the base, essentially without tomentum distally. Stem: leaves somewhat soft or lax, loosely to more closely foliose, variably gradually somewhat larger and more crowded toward the stem tips or the reverse with the leaves somewhat larger proximally than distally, loosely and irregularly curled to crisped when dry, erect-spreading to spreading when moist, oblong-lanceolate, to lanceolate, sides generally parallel and scarcely tapered from the base, typically strongly keeled-concave or broadly channeled across the leaf adaxially, (1–)1.5–2 mm, not undulate; base not differentiated or somewhat broader, elliptical; margins plane to erect, broadly incurved distally, not undulate; apex typically cucullate, occasionally fistulose, obtuse to acute, occasionally abruptly narrowed and concave-acuminate; costa short-excurrent by 1–3 cells, cells of the adaxial surface cells entirely smooth and narrowly elongated, 8:1, throughout, adaxial epidermis absent, without 2-stratose areas at juncture with lamina; occasionally abaxial surface roughened by projecting distal cell ends, these more dense at the leaf apex; proximal laminal cells abruptly differentiated from distal cells, pale yellow, transparent, elongate, laxly very thin-walled and fragile, smooth; marginal cells undifferentiated, sharply crenulate-papillose; distal laminal cells densely and sharply papillose, quadrate, 10–12 µm wide. : Specialized asexual reproduction none. Sexual: condition dioicous; perigonia not seen; perichaetial leaves of fertilized archegonia conspicuously differentiated, elongate, 2–5.5 mm, erect from a broad, long and hyaline sheathing sometimes inflated base, when dry, the erect leaves distinct from the crispate stem leaves. Seta: 1.5–2.7 cm. Capsule: 1.5–2 mm, annular cells not vesiculose; operculum 1–2 mm; peristome teeth long, to 0.7 mm, spirally wound more than once. North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia.