Shrubs or suffruticose herbs up to 1.5 meters high or more; stems quadrangular, glabrous; leaf blades elliptic, up to 21 cm. long and 10 cm. wide, short-acuminate, narrowed at base, thin, entire or undulate, glabrous on both surfaces; cystoliths lacking; petioles up to 4 cm. long, glabrous; flowers borne in axillary and terminal sub- helicoid cymes 2.5 to 4 cm. long (excluding corollas), the peduncles 1 cm. long, subquadrangular, glabrous, the internodes of the inflores- cence up to 5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. in diameter at base, 2 mm. broad at their tips, glabrous or bifariously and sparingly hirtellous, the hairs about 0.1 mm. long and subappressed; bracts thin, cuncate, up to 1 cm. long, up to 6 mm. wide at tip, truncate or subemarginate, glabrous; calyx narrowly campanulate, 1 cm. long, the segments lanceolate, 8 mm. long, 1.75 mm. wide, gradually narrowed from 2.5 mm. above base to an acute tip, thin, glabrous, obscurely nerved; corollas orange, glabrous, up to 5.8 cm. long, 2.5 mm. broad near base, thence gradu
ally enlarged to 6 mm. at throat, the upper lip erect, oblong-ovate, 2.2 cm. long, 6 mm. wide, subacute at tip, the lower lip spreading or recurved, cuneate, 2.5 cm. long, 1 cm. wide near tip, the 3 lobes oblong- ovate, 7 mm. long, the lateral ones 3.5 mm. wide, the middle one 5 mm. wide, all rounded; stamens exserted 1.5 cm. beyond the mouth of the corolla tube, glabrous, the anthers 4.25 mm. long, the cells 3.25 mm. long, 0.5 mm. broad, superposed and vertically attached to the connective, the lower cell briefly caudate; pistil slightly exceeding the stamens, the stigma minute, unequally bilobed, the lobes ovate, rounded; ovary glabrous; capsules not seen.
Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, No. 2045427, collected in temperate forest at San Isidro, 7 km. south of Gachalá, Department of Cundinamarca, Colombia, 2,200 meters altitude, May 27, 1944, by Martin L. Grant and F. R. Fosberg (No. 9341).
Also of this species is Grant's No. 10278, collected in temperate forest at Toquiza, Gazaunta Valley, Cordillera de Helicona, 15 km. northwest of Medina, Cundinamarca, 2,135 meters altitude, Septem- ber 24, 1944.
Justicia aurantiaca can be easily recognized by the cuneate truncate bracts and large orange flowers.