Plants gregarious or tufted, brownish green, uncinate-curved at tips when dry, to ca. 10 mm but mostly shorter. Leaves dimorphic; vegetative 2-3 mm; distal lamina oblong to oblong-lanceolate; margins slightly thickened distally, entire; costa in cross section showing ad- and abaxial bands of stereid cells; medial cells distinct, 7-9 µm, bulging adaxially, smooth to slightly bulging or minutely 1-papillose abaxially; teniolae usually distinct at leaf shoulders and above, sometimes weak or interrupted; cancellinae ending in broad angles distally, often appearing truncate, adaxial cells smooth distally; gemmiferous leaves with apices constricted and often with narrow revolute marginal laminae, bearing gemmae only on adaxial surface in a usually conspicuous hairbrush-like tuft.

Not producing sporophytes in flora area. Tree trunks and logs in hammocks and forests; low elevations (0 m); Fla.; Mexico; West Indies; Central America; South America; Asia; Africa; Pacific Islands.

In the flora area, Calymperes palisotii is rather frequent in peninsular Florida, especially in the southern part, including some of the upper Keys. Its broad, more or less distally truncate cancellinae and gemmae in a hairbrush-like tuft on the adaxial surface of the leaf apex make it easy to recognize. Calymperes palisotii is represented in the flora area by the subsp. palisotii.