Stiff erect herbs up to 66 cm. high or more; stems simple or spar- ingly branched, subquadrangular, the upper portion bifariously and retrorsely strigose (the hairs up to 0.16 mm. long), glabrous below, the cystoliths minute and parallel; leaf blades oblong-elliptic, up to 13.5 cm. long and 5.5 cm. wide, short-acuminate, the tips often curved (the tip itself blunt), narrowed at base, firm and fleshy, entire, the upper surface glabrous, the lower surface glabrous except the costa and lateral veins (8 or 9 pairs), these minutely strigose, the venation prominent beneath, obscure above, the cystoliths conspic- uous under lens but more or less scattered; petioles up to 2 cm. long and 1.75 mm. thick, minutely strigose; flowers borne in terminal forked spikes up to 3 cm. long and 6 mm. broad, the peduncle up to
6 cm. long, hirtellous, the hairs brownish, recurved, up to 0.16 mm. long, the rachis hirsute, the hairs similar to those of the peduncle but straighter and more spreading, the bracts subtending the spikes subulate, 6 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide at base, acute, carinate, hirsute, the cystoliths dense, parallel, conspicuous where not obscured by the hairs; bracts subtending the flowers narrowly triangular, 3 mm. long, 1 mm. wide at base, acute and ciliate, densely covered by parallel cystoliths; bractlets similar to the bracts but slightly narrower; calyx segments 5, about 5 mm. long, lanceolate, acute, 3-nerved, the costa and margins sparingly ciliolate; corolla white, rather sparingly puberulous, some of the hairs glandular, the upper lip erect, oblong, 6.5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide at base, gradually narrowed to a minutely bilobed tip 0.5 mm. wide, the lower lips spreading, cuneate, about 3 mm. wide at the base of the lobes, these 3, rounded, about 1.5 mm. long and wide; stamens barely reaching the tip of the upper corolla lip and partly enfolded by it, the anther lobes superposed, vertically attached to the connective, each lobe about 0.75 mm. long, the lower one spurred, the style slightly longer than the stamens; ovary hirsute at the tip.
Type in the herbarium of the Facultad de Agronómia del Valle, Palmira, Colombia, collected at La Trojita, on the Río Calima, Department of El Valle, Colombia, 5 to 50 meters altitude, February 19 to March 10, 1944, by J. Cuatrecasas (No. 16811).
The label on the type sheet bears the following notes by J. Cuatre- casas: "Hierba erguida, rigida. Hoja herbacea, crasiuscula, verde grisacea; bracteas y calices verde pálidas. Corola blanca." Justicia sterea has apparently no close relatives, except perhaps J. petraea or J. hodgei. The specific epithet is from the Greek σrepeós, meaning stiff or rigid, in allusion to the habit of the plant.