Pseudoleskea Schimp.

Plants small and slender to rather robust, forming loose or dense, dull mats. Stems creeping, irregularly or subpinnately branched, the branches often curved. Stem and branch leaves similar (or with stem leaves ± larger), crowded, erect and imbricate when dry, spreading when moist, broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, mostly twice plicate at base, weakly decurrent, mostly serrulate near apex, often weakly recurved below; mid laminal cells ± isodiametric or short-rhomboid (as in N.Z. species), firm-walled, bulging at upper end (prorate) or smooth, those at basal margins mostly oblate in several rows; alar cells not differentiated. Costa stout, ending below the leaf apex, toothed abaxially above. Paraphyllia usually present and conspicuous (but apparently absent in N.Z. species). Pseudoparaphyllia absent. Propagula (branchlets) absent.

Dioicous or rarely autoicous (as in N.Z. species). Perichaetial leaves oblong-lanceolate or acuminate, costate. Setae elongate, smooth, red-brown; capsules erect or weakly inclined, oblong-cylindric and curved; annulus absent or weakly differentiated; operculum conic, blunt. Peristome double, ± hypnoid; endostome segments arising from a basal membrane, lanceolate, nearly equal the teeth, with cilia rudimentary or lacking. Calyptra naked, cucullate. Spores small, finely papillose.

Pseudoleskea is a modest-sized genus. Brotherus (1925) considered it to include 38 species. Pseudoleskea is distributed mostly at high elevations in temperate and tropical regions. It is in need of taxonomic revision in conjunction with the allied Pseudoleskeopsis Broth. and Lescuraea Schimp.