Suffrutescent plants up to 30 cm. high or more; stems erect or ascending, subhexagonal, glabrous or the nodes puberulous with curved hairs; leaf blades lanceolate, up to 10 cm. long and 3 cm. wide, subacuminate (the tip itself obtuse), narrowed at base, glabrous, the costa and veins (5 or 6 pairs) rather obscure, the cystoliths prominent and numerous under a lens, 250 to 375μ long; petioles up to 2 cm. long, glabrous or the margins of the channel puberulous with curved hairs; cymes 3-parted, usually several in each axil, the peduncles 2 mm. long from base to fork, 10 to 12 mm. long from fork to base of cymule bracts, glabrous, hexagonal, flattened toward tip, the angles acute, the cystoliths parallel, prominent under a lens; bracts produced at the fork of the cyme subulate, 2.5 mm. long, 0.25 mm. broad at base; cymule bracts ovate, obtuse and more or less apiculate, truncate or shallowly cordate at base, glabrous, firm, subchartaceous, the costa and the coarse reticulations of the veins prominent, the cystoliths numerous and conspicuous under a lens, the upper bract about 15 mm. long and wide, the lower 10 mm. long and wide; innermost bracts subtending the flowers connate at base, narrowly triangular, 1.5 mm. long, 0.5 mm. wide at base, acute, ciliate, subhyaline, bearing prom- inent cystoliths; calyx 3 mm. long, puberulous or glabrous near base, the pubescence a mixture of acute ascending hairs up to 100μ long and shorter gland-tipped ones; corollas, ovaries and capsules not seen. Type in the Kew Herbarium, collected at Copo near Tequendama, Department of Cundinamarca, 500 meters altitude, July 1833, by J. Triana (No. 4093-4). Isotype: Col. Dicliptera compacta can be distinguished from D. columbiana, possibly its closest relative, by the crowded inflorescences and the relatively longer leaf blades. The specific epithet alludes to the crowded cymes.