Breutelia brittoniae Ren. & Card., Bull. Soc. Roy. Bot. Belg. 31(1): 161. 1892.
Protologue: Costa Rica. Forêts du Barba, brins en mélange avec Leptodontium subgracile (Pitt. no 5557). – Bolivia. Bolivie: Sorata, 13,000 pieds (Rusby no 3137, a domina Britton benevole communicata).
Plants medium to large-sized, in dense or loose, glossy, yellowish‑green or green tufts, to 10 cm high. Stems red, laxly ascending, hyalodermis and central strand present, densely tomentose below; rhizoids reddish brown, smooth or roughened. Leaves 3–5 mm long, well-spaced or occasionally closely spaced, wide-spreading to squarrose or deflexed from an erect, clasping, plicate base with to 3 pairs of sulci at junction of the sheath and limb, obovate-lanceolate; apices long, slenderly acuminate, apices not twisted when dry; margins plane or narrowly revolute, serrulate or serrate to sharply serrate above; costae short- or long-excurrent, scabrous at back; leaf cells papillose at lower ends, or from both ends, upper cells short- to long-rectangular firm- and straight‑walled or porose, 12–50 x 3–8 μm, basal cells narrower and elongate, 25–75 x 5 μm, thin- or thick-walled, smooth or porose, alar region with 2–4 enlarged cells along the basal margin and 0–1(-2) marginal rows of enlarged rectangular cells, otherwise undifferentiated. Dioicous. Perigonia discoid. Sporophytes not seen. “Setae 0.5–2 cm long, faintly arcuate, capsules inclined to horizontal, furrowed when mature and dry, ovoid, 3–4 mm long x 1.5 mm wide, exostome teeth faintly papillose below, more coarsely papillose above, 375–825 μm long, endostome segments nearly equaling the teeth, yellowish, keeled, split above into 2–4 forks, coarsely papillose except at extreme base, cilia 2–3, rudimentary. Spores reniform, papillose areolate, 23–35 μm in diameter” (Griffin 1988).