Epiphytic or terrestrial, bushy shrubs 0.5-1.5(-2) m tall;  branchlets sharply ridged and grooved, indistinctly 3-angled to irregularly 4-angled, glabrous, sparingly strigillose or minutely puberulent;  mature branches becoming terete, grayish to blackish, conspicuously fissured;  internodes 1/5-3/5 as long as the surrounding leaves.  Leaf blades coriaceous, entire to obscurely and microscopically serrulate, broadly elliptic to somewhat obovate or spatulate, (8-)12-18 x (4-)6-12 mm, apically obtuse to broadly rounded, basally cuneate, glabrous above, beneath evenly but sparingly beset with appressed, amber colored trichomes 0.2-0.3 mm long;  3-5-plinerved, the midrib and lateral veins slightly elevated to nearly plane on both surfaces, dark green above, pale green beneath;  petioles 3-5 mm long, glabrous, flattened above.  Inflorescence of solitary, axillary, subsessile flowers;  pedicels 2-3 mm long;  bracteoles subopposite, broadly clasping, semiorbicular, ciliate, located 1.5-1.8 mm below the base of the calyx, ca. 1.5 x 1.8-2 mm, scarcely overlapping the base of the hypanthium;  floral bracts 1-3, deltoid to acutely oblong, situated near the base of the pedicel.  Flowers 3-merous;  calyx hypanthium terete, short, cylindric, glabrous, ca. 3.5 mm long and  2-2.2 mm in diam.;  lobes 3, not very pronounced, erect, broadly deltoid, acute, ca. 0.5 mm long, entire, eciliate, glabrous;  corolla deep red, thinly fleshy, 7-7.8 mm long, the tube cylindric, abruptly tapering into a basal portion 1-1.4 mm in diam., the main portion of the tube ca. 2.5 mm in diam., bearing a few, ascendent trichomes 0.1-0.2 mm long, the lobes 3, erect, acute, oblong-deltate, 1.5-2 x 1-1.2 mm;  stamens 6, ca. 1 mm shorter than the corolla;  filaments with the free portion ca. 2.5 mm long, flattened, glabrous;  anther thecae granular, 2.5-2.8 mm long;  tubules 2.5-2.8 mm long, dehiscing by an introrse, elongate, oval slit ca. 1.5 mm long;  style glabrous, slender, equal to the corolla.  Berry at first greenish-white, but turning dark blue.

    Distribution.  Endemic to W Panama.  Rare.