During a survey of freshwater algal diversity from streams in the Mount Maoshan, Jiangsu Province, China, a newly recorded diatom, Brachysira irawanae (Podzorski & Hkansson) LangeBertalot & Podzorski has been recorded. B. irawanae was previously reported in the Philippines and Japan with relatively simple description. In this paper, taxonomic characteristics of B. irawanae under light microscope (LM) were described in details, and the scanning electron microscope (SEM) characteristics were firstly presented in details. Morphological features differences among some resembling gomphonemoid species belonging to Brachysira genus were discussed. In addition, a short review of taxonomic studies on Latin names of Brachysira and a checklist of Brachysira genus reported from China (contains seven species and one variant) is given.