Shrubby plants up to 1 meter high; stems subquadrangular (the angles rounded) glabrous or bifariously and sparingly puberulous, the hairs about 0.16 mm. long, variously curved, the cystoliths numerous, minute and subpunctiform; leaf blades oblong-ovate or oblong- elliptic, up to 22 cm. long and 9 cm. wide, short-acuminate (the tip itself blunt), acute at base and decurrent on the petiole, rather thin, entire or undulate, sparingly strigose, or glabrous except the minutely strigose costa and lateral veins (about 9 pairs), the hairs up to 0.2 mm. long, the costa and veins rather prominent beneath, less so above, the cystoliths about 0.2 mm. long; petioles up to 3 cm. long, puberu- lous; flowers borne in terminal and axillary panicles up to 12 cm. long and 7 cm. broad, the branches spreading, the peduncles up to 12 cm. long, subquadrangular, puberulous, the hairs upwardly curved, about 0.2 mm. long, the lowermost internodes of the panicles up to 5 cm. long, the others successively shorter towards the tips of the branches, these like the peduncles puberulous, the branches of the panicles subtended by small leaf blades usually 1 to 3 cm. long and 3 to 7 mm. wide, the flowers usually 6 to 10, crowded at the tips of the branches of the inflorescence, sessile or subsessile (pedicels up to 0.75 mm. long); bracts subtending the ultimate branches of the inflorescence lanceolate, up to 5 mm. long and 0.75 mm. wide, acute, sparingly ciliate, the costa prominent; bracts subtending the flowers subulate, up to 4 mm. long and about 0.25 mm. wide, acute, sparingly ciliate; bractlets similar to the bracts but shorter, up to 2.25 mm. long; calyx 5 mm. long, deeply segmented, the segments 5, linear-lanceolate, 0.5 mm. wide, acute or slenderly acuminate, rather thin, glabrous or the costa and margins sparingly ciliate, the hairs up to 0.57 mm. long, the costal hairs sometimes gland-tipped; corolla greenish white (the tip white), 15 to 16 mm. long, the tube subcylindric, 1.5 mm. broad at base, 2 mm. broad just above base, 2.5 mm. broad at mouth, sparingly and minutely pubescent, the upper lip erect, ovate, 4 mm. long, 5 mm. wide near base, narrowed to a blunt tip, the lower lip 5 mm. long, 3-lobed, 5 mm. wide near base of lobes, the lobes suborbicular, about 1.25 mm. in diameter; stamens reaching tip of upper lip, the anthers 1.5 mm. long, the lobes superposed, attached to the connective almost vertically, the upper lobe and part of connective hirtellous, the lower lobe glabrous, terminated at base by a whitish spur about 0.3 mm. long, the filaments glabrous; style slightly exceeding the stamens, glabrous toward tip, sparing hirtellous toward base; capsules elavate, about 12 mm. long, 2.5 mm. broad, 1.5 mm. thick, glabrous or bearing a few spreading glandular hairs about 0.38 mm. long; retinacula 1.5 mm. long, slender, curved, rounded at tip; seed (immature) tuberculate.

Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, No. 1798543, collected in the wet forests along the Río San Miguel at the Quebrada de la

Hormiga, Comisaría of Putumayo, Colombia, 290 meters altitude, December 17, 1940, by J. Cuatrecasas (No. 11137).

Also of this species is Cuatrecasas' No. 10933 (Col), collected in wet forests of the Río San Miguel at the mouth of the Río Conejo, Colombian-Ecuadorian border, 300 meters altitude, December 9, 1940, and Sprague 396 (K), collected at Mocoa, Putumayo, May 25, 1899. Justicia chloanantha has no close relatives among the Colombian species. A similarity of the inflorescences suggests Justicia cuzcoensis Lindau of Perú, but that species has much smaller, ovate, and more hairy leaf blades (up to 9 cm. long and 4 cm. wide) and yellowish white and purplish corollas. The specific epithet is from the Greek xλoavós, greenish, and avos, flower.