Plants with long, branching stems that cling to tree trunks or rock outcrops and extend out into space, looking like a very shaggy green carpet. Close up, one can see tightly appressed, overlapping leaves that give it the appearance of green caterpillars. When dry, as in the three opaque images at left below, the leaves shrivel and press together tightly. When wet, they expand, spread and become translucent, as in the three images at right below.

From above, as in the left and right pictures, middle row, there appear to be two rows of leaves, one on either side of the stem. The leaves are actually folded so that a larger lobe is on top and a smaller lobe folded below, as can be seen in the three lowest pictures. This is an arrangement called complicate bilobed, because two (bi-) lobes are folded (plicate) together (com-). In addition there is another row of leaves below the stem, which can best be seen in the image at lowest right. From below (lowest row of pictures) the plants look very leafy indeed! It would seem strange to have so many leaves hidden, but the upper leaves and stem are translucent and some light reaches all the leaves. Water can be trapped and stored between the upper and lower lobes and between the stem and underleaves, thus keeping the plant moister between rainshowers.

The plants reproduce by spores, which are produced in brown, egg-shaped capsules, as seen in the middle row, right. The capsules are surrounded by a leaf-like sac, which persists after the capsule falls off. The sacs, called perianths, can be seen in the middle and right images of the middle row. They have three creases, and an opening at the top.

Native to North America from the Maritime provinces of Canada to Minnesota and south to Louisiana and Florida, and also in the Southwest.. In Wildwood, the plant is common on the shaded sides of trees near Connelly's Run, where the air is moister.

No other Anerican liverwort grows as a shaggy mane on tree trunks; although some mosses do. The leaf arrangement will identify it as liverwort. This species resembles Porella platyphylla (platyphylloidea means "like platyphylla") and has been called that in some books. However, P. platyphylla is a Eurasian species.