Shrubs; stems hirtellous or more or less tomentose, densely so near the tips, the hairs appressed, ascending or spreading, 0.3 to 0.5 mm. long, the main stems terete, glabrate, up to 6.5 mm. in diameter or more, the bark gray, the nodes swollen; leaf blades lance-ovate, up to 10.5 cm. long and 4 cm. wide, short-acuminate (the tip itself obtuse), narrowed and acute at base, firm, entire or undulate, the upper sur- face hirsute, the hairs ascending to subappressed, up to 0.5 mm. long, the costa densely hirsute with brownish spreading hairs, it and the lateral veins obscure, the lower surface densely and softly hirsute, the hairs straight or slightly curved, 0.5 mm. long, light brownish, erect, the costa and lateral veins prominent, the cystoliths of both surfaces obscured by the pubescence; petioles 5 to 15 mm. long, densely hirsute; flowers borne in leafy panicles of erect or suberect spikes up to 11 cm. long and 8 mm. broad (excluding corollas), the panicles up to 17 cm. long and 6 cm. broad, the peduncles up to 2.5 cm. long, the lowermost internodes of the rachis 5 mm. long, the others successively shorter toward tip of spikes, both peduncle and rachis densely and softly hirsute with light brownish ascending hairs; bracts lanceolate, 8 mm. long, 2.25 mm. wide, obtusish at tip, densely and softly hirsute; bractlets 1.25 mm. wide, in other respects similar to the bracts; calyx 6.5 mm. long, deeply divided into 5 segments, these lanceolate, 1.75 mm. wide near base, acuminate, rather densely hirtellous, erect or appressed to the ovary; corolla up to 4.7 cm. long, red, minutely pubescent with straight spreading hairs up to 0.2 mm. long, the tube 2.5 mm. broad at base, narrowed at 4 mm, above base to 1.5 mm. thence gradually enlarged to 7 mm. at throat, the lips subequal, 22 mm. long, the upper lip erect, oblong-ovate, 8 mm. wide at base, bilobed at apex, the lobes rounded, 0.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, the margins subhyaline and glabrous, the lower lip suberect, 3-lobed, the lobes oblong, 1 cm. long, 2.5 mm. wide, rounded at tip; stamens ex- serted 15 mm. beyond the mouth of the corolla tube, the filaments glabrous, the anthers 5 mm. long, the lobes superposed, 2.75 mm. long, 0.75 mm. broad, vertically attached to the connective, the basal end of the lower lobe terminating in a blunt whitish tail; capsules clavate, 17 mm. long, 4.25 mm. broad, 3.5 mm. thick, subobtuse, glabrous; retinacula curved, oblong, 2 mm. long, the tip rounded; seed (im- mature), glabrous, brown, flattened, muricate, the projections rounded. Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, No. 1900474, collected in the Quebrada de los Osos, in the valley of the Río Bugalagrande, Cordillera Central, Department of El Valle, Colombia, 2,170 meters altitude, April 20, 1946, by J. Cuatrecasas (No. 20941). Justicia malacophylla has apparently no close relatives among the Colombian species of Acanthaceae. The specific epithet is from the Greek and was suggested by the soft velvety leaves, palakós, soft, and φύλλον, leaf.