Plants small, brownish green to bright green, forming dense clusters on soil. Stems reddish brown or pale, unbranched or rarely forked, to c. 2 mm tall. Upper leaves concave, ovate or very broad and often wider than long, obovate to spathulate; apex broadly obtuse, often apiculate, to 2.5 mm long; costa generally absent, a few leaves with a vestigial ‘costa’ consisting of a bistratose strip 1 or 2 cells wide and 2 or 3 cells long, occasionally discontinuous, in the position of a true costa in the mid- and upper part of the leaf; margins plane and entire. Upper laminal cells quite variable, hexagonal to oblong, 15–25 µm wide, equidimensional to elongate; those in lower portion of lamina more oblong or quadrate, somewhat laxer; marginal cells not differentiated.

Perichaetial leaves very concave with an obtuse, apiculate or occasionally acuminate apex, to 2 mm long, usually much shorter than in the type subspecies, ecostate or sometimes with a vestigial ‘costa’. Spores (70–) 80–90 (–110) µm in greater diam.

Occurs in W.A., N.T., S.A., Qld, N.S.W. and Vic.; endemic.

Goniomitrium acuminatum subsp. enerve (Hook. & Wilson) Fife & Seppelt, Hikobia 13: 487 (2001); Goniomitrium enerve Hook. & Wilson, London J. Bot. 5: 142 (1846); Physcomitrium enerve (Hook. & Wilson) Müll.Hal., Syn. Musc. Frond. 2: 545 (1851). Type: Swan R., W.A., J.Drummond 6a; holo: BM.

N.T.: Kunoth Well, Hamilton Downs Stn, D.Nelson 2307.

N.S.W.: 80 km SW of Cobar, D.J.Eldridge BSCS 93; Mundi Mundi, W of Broken Hill, D.J.Eldridge BSCS 523.

Vic.: Mt Wycheproof, W.W.Watts 652.

D.G.Catcheside, Mosses of South Australia 235, fig. 132 (1980), as G. enerve; D.Meagher & B.Fuhrer, A Field Guide to the Mosses and Allied Plants of Southern Australia 101 (2003), as G. acuminatum var. enerve.

A.J.Fife & R.D.Seppelt (2012), Australian Mosses Online 67. Funariaceae. Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra. Version 2 October 2012.