Ptilotus brachyanthus is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaranthaceae and is endemic to Queensland. It was first formally described in 1870 by George Bentham who gave it the name Trichinium brachyanthum in Flora Australiensis from an unpublished description by Ferdinand von Mueller. In 1882, von Mueller transferred the species to Ptilotus as P. brachyanthus in his Systematic Census of Australian Plants.