Named in honour of the British bryologist Robert Braithwaite (1824–1917).

Dioicous. Plants medium-sized to tall, dendroid. Stems ascending from a very short creeping basal part; innovations basal. Pseudoparaphyllia foliose, spreading. Fronds pinnate to bipinnate or irregular, projecting horizontally; branches often bearing clustered filiform gemmae. Stem leaves triangular-ovate-oblong; costa percurrent to short-excurrent; margin almost entire; mid-leaf cells linear, smooth or weakly prorate; alar cells weakly differentiated. Branch leaves ovate to ovate-oblong; apex ±obtuse, cymbiform; costa abaxially protruding, almost smooth to scabrous.

Perichaetia scattered along main branches and the distal part of the stem. Calyptra cucullate, smooth. Seta long, smooth. Capsules cylindrical, almost straight, sulcate; annulus present; stomata phaneroporous. Operculum narrowly conical, blunt. Peristome double; exostome teeth 16, yellowish to colourless, papillose throughout, the ventral lamella very low; basal membrane of endostome very low; processes 16, linear, unequal in length, occasionally appendiculate; cilia absent.

This monotypic family occurs in eastern and south-eastern Australia, Lord Howe Island, New Zealand and New Caledonia.

Braithwaitea Lindb., Acta Soc. Sci. Fenn. 10: 250 (1872). Pterobryon Hornsch. [sect.] Braithwaitea Mitt., Trans. & Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria 19: 82 (1882). Type: B. sulcata (Hook.) A.Jaeger

Bell, N.E., Quandt, D., O’Brien, T.J. & Newton, A.E. (2007), Taxonomy and phylogeny in the earliest diverging pleurocarps: square holes and bifurcating pegs, Bryologist 110:
533–560.

Touw, A. (1971), A taxonomic revision of the Hypnodendraceae (Musci), Blumea 19:
211–354.

A.Touw (2012), Australian Mosses Online 21. Braithwaiteaceae. Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra. Version 11 May 2012. http://www.anbg.gov.au/abrs/Mosses_online/21_Braithwaiteaceae.html