Plaubelia is an older name for what is more commonly known as Neohyophila. The genus is usually placed in the Pottioideae because the costa has been thought to have only a single (dorsal) stereid band. But in fact two stereid bands are occasionally  present, and serial cross-sections of single leaves can have some areas with a single dorsal stereid band and others with dorsal stereids and ventral substereids. The genus has spathulate to oblong leaves with weakly differentiated basal cells, plane or incurved leaf margins, laminal cells bulging-mammillose on the ventral surface but plane to somewhat convex on the dorsal surface, a costa with a ventral epidermis of greatly bulging cells, and a peristome of 16 erect, non-twisted peristome teeth.

The leaves of Plaubelia and Hyophila are similar in shape, and both species have leaf cells that are bulging-mammillose on the ventral surface. Hyophila differs from Plaubelia in its usually larger size, eperistomate capsules, costa having a well-developed ventral stereid band, and its moderately bulging epidermal cells on the ventral surface of the costa. As treated by Zander (1993) Plaubelia has three species, only one of which (with two varieties) is known from Central America. Useful treatments of Plaubelia have been published by Crum (1965) and Zander (1983).