Plants minute and gregarious, or larger, forming compact tufts and cushions, unbranched to rarely 2-3-branched, on rock, acrocarpous. Leaves twisted-spreading to stiffly erect when dry, generally erect-spreading to spreading-recurved, sometimes slightly curved when moist, linear to stoutly subulate from clasping base; margins plane, entire to denticulate; costa single, homogenous in transverse-section, ending near the apex to long-excurrent, distal leaf cells smooth, short; alar cells not differentiated to somewhat enlarged and colored. Seta straight, flexuose or cygneous. Capsule mostly erect, symmetric, cylindric-ovate to turbinate; peristome haplolepideous, of 16 triangular entire teeth, these reduced in some species, or absent.

Sporophytes are necessary for identifying the species of Seligeriaceae.