6. Brothera C. Müll., Gen. Musc. Frond. 258. 1900.
Plants small, slender, grayish green to yellowish green, in extensive compact tufts. Stems erect, simple or sparsely branched, often bearing compact clusters of brood bodies in axils of the upper leaves; central strand absent. Leaves erect, linear-lanceolate, tubulose below, subtubulose above; costa broad, filling 1/3 or more of the leaf base width and nearly all of the subula, in cross section, with a median layer of thin-walled, connected or disconnected green cells, enclosed by a row of large, thin-walled, hyaline cells on both the dorsal and ventral surfaces; laminal cells hyaline, rectangular, marginal cells somewhat elongate, laxer at the base; alar cells slightly differentiated. Dioicous. Perichaetial leaves not much differentiated from vegetative leaves. Setae elongate, smooth, straight and slightly twisted when dry, sinuous-flexuose when moist; capsules oblong-ovoid, erect and symmetric; annuli compound, in 2 rows, deciduous; opercula long-rostrate; peristome teeth 16, inserted below the mouth, undivided, papillose nearly throughout or more or less vertically striate at the base. Calyptrae cucullate or narrowly mitrate, ciliate-fringed at the base. Spores small, spherical, pale yellowish, smooth.
Brotherus (1929) and C. Gao (1994) reported two species of Brothera from China. Since Brothera himalayana Broth. has been transferred to Campylopodiella Card. by Frahm (1984), only one species, Brothera leana, is presently known from China.