Suffrutescent; stems subquadrangular, glabrous or sparingly pilose; leaf blades oblong-obovate, up to 24 cm. long and 6.5 cm. wide, short-acuminate, narrowed at base and decurrent on the petiole, moderately firm, entire or undulate, both surfaces glabrous and nitid, the costa and lateral veins (7 or 8 pairs) prominent beneath, less so above, the cystoliths rather loosely scattered but prominent under a lens, averaging 0.11 mm. in length; flowers borne in loose spikes up to about 9 cm. long, these several, erect, forming a loose panicle about 16 cm. long, the peduncle 4 cm. long, subquadrangular, glabrous, nitid or the upper portion minutely and sparingly puberulous with glandular and eglandular hairs up to 0.64 mm. long, the lowermost internodes of the panicle 3 cm. long, the others successively shorter toward the tip of the inflorescence, the pubescence that of the peduncle
but somewhat denser; lowermost pair of bracts subulate, 7 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide at base, gradually narrowed to a slender tip, carinate, glabrous or bearing a few small hairs near the tip; bracts subtending the flowers subulate, 4 to 5 mm. long, about 1 mm. wide at base, glabrous or puberulous near the base like the rachis, ciliate with rigid ascending hairs about 0.8 mm. long; bractlets similar to the bracts but smaller, 3 mm. long and 0.5 mm. wide at base; calyx 11 to 12 mm. long, the segments 4, linear, 0.75 mm. wide, ciliate, the inner surface hirtellous with ascending or subappressed hairs up to 0.13 mm. long, the outer surface puberulent with more or less spreading glandular and eglandular hairs mostly less than 0.5 mm. long; corolla (im- mature) 4 mm. long, sparingly hirsute, the upper lip 1.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, rounded at tip, the lower lip 3-lobed, the lobes 1.5 mm. long and 1 mm. wide, rounded; stamens 3 mm. long, the fertile cell 2.5 mm. long and 1.5 mm. broad, blunt at base, the sterile cell repre- sented by a membranous triangular wing incurved at base, the filaments glabrous; style glabrous toward tip, hirtellous toward base; stigma bilobed, minute; capsules not seen.
Type in the Kew Herbarium, collected at Villavicencio, Intendencia of Meta, Colombia, December 1855, by J. Triana.