This is a wide-ranging Pacific coastal species, with the southernmost populations known from the Spring Mountains. This species was last verified locally in the mid-1950s. Grows intermixed with the undescribed species of Targionia , oddly enough, both in Utah and in Nevada. This species resembles very closely one of the most common species of mosses in the state, Grimmia anodon . Both species occur on limestone rocks exposed to the sun.
Sporophytes are deeply immersed, a capsules are peristomate, and the upper leaf is bistratose.
This species was originally collected in Nevada in 1955, from the south end of Valley of Fire State Park, on sandstone soil. The population was revisited in 1999 and appears healthy. It forms extensive mats and resembles Didymodon nevadensis in its twisted leaf appearance and coloration. Like D. nevadensis , it is comprised of female-only plants, with males unknown in North America. A rarity in the Mojave Desert, Pseudocrossidium becomes more common in the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico and west Texas.