Herbs or suffrutescent plants up to 70 cm. high; stems subquad- rangular, the angles rounded, glabrous or the tips bifariously strigose, the hairs up to 0.5 mm. long; leaf blades oblong-elliptic, up to 25 cm. long and 7 cm. wide, subacute to short-acuminate (the tip itself blunt), narrowed to base and decurrent on the petiole, firm, undulate- glabrous, the costa, lateral veins (9 or 10 pairs) and veinlets prominent- but more so beneath than above; petioles up to 1.5 cm. long, glabrous flowers borne in terminal subhelicoid thyrsi up to 7 cm. long and 5 cm wide, the peduncles about 1 cm. long, these and the internodes of the inflorescence (the lowermost 1 cm. long, the others successively shorter) quadrangular, enlarging at tip, bifariously and retrorsely hirsute, the hairs about 0.75 mm. long, whitish; bracts subtending the lowermost cymes leaflike, about 3 cm. long and 1 cm. wide, those subtending the cymes slenderly lanceolate, up to 4 cm. long and 2.5 mm. wide, glabrous or sparingly hirsute, those subtending the flowers filiform, up to 3 cm. long and 0.5 mm. wide, yellow, finely- striate, sparingly ciliate, the hairs up to 1 mm. long; bractlets similar to the bracts but somewhat longer; calyx yellow, 18 mm. long. the tube about 1 mm. long, the segments lanceolate, about 2 mm- wide, gradually narrowed from below middle to a slender tip, finely striate, ciliate, the hairs up to 0.75 mm. long; corollas about 4 cm. long, rather sparingly glandular-pubescent without, white, the tube subcylindrical, about 8 mm. broad at mouth and 5 mm. at base, slightly narrowed at about 5 mm. above base, densely hirsute within at base, the lips subequal, the upper lip erect, oblong-ovate, 6 mm.. wide near base, emarginate at tip, the lower lip more or less spreading, 3-lobed nearly to the base, the lobes oblong, about 4 mm. wide, rounded at tip; stamens almost reaching the tip of the upper lip of the corolla, the anther lobes slightly superposed, the upper lobe obliquely attached, 4 mm. long, the lower nearly vertical, about 5 mm. long, calcarate, the tail 0.5 mm. long, both lobes pilose dorsally; ovary glabrous; capsules not seen.
Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, No. 1774448, collected in woods at San José del Guaviare, Caño Grande, Comisaría del Vaupés, Colombia, 240 meters altitude, November 2, 1939, by J. Cuatrecasas (No. 7383).  Philipson, Idrobo & Fernandez' No. 1579 (BM, US), collected in dense humid forest along the Río Guapaya, Sierra de la Macarena, Intendencia del Meta, 450 meters altitude, November 26, 1949, is also of this species.
The relatively long and very slender yellow flower bracts serve to distinguish Justicia croceochlamys, which apparently has no close relative in Colombia. The specific epithet is from the Greek кpóκeos, yellow, and xλauús, bract.