Slender shrubs up to 3 or occasionally 5 meters high, sparingly branched, the stems erect or ascending (sometimes tortuous), subquadrate and densely pilose toward tip, the hairs light brown or whitish, up to 2 mm. long, spreading, descending, or appressed, the lower portions of the stem terete, gray, glabrate, the lenticels minute and corky; leaf blades oblong to oblong-elliptic or broadly oblanceolate, the uppermost 15 to 30 cm. long and 5 to 10 cm. wide, the lowermost as much as 45 cm. long and 16.5 cm. wide, all more or less abruptly acuminate (the apex often more or less curved), gradually narrowed at base and decurrent on the petiole, subcoriaceous, entire or undulate, the upper surface drying olive or brownish, glabrate or sparingly hirsute, the costa and lateral veins densely so, the hairs light brown, appressed or ascending, 0.5 to 1 mm. long, the costa and lateral veins (14 to 20 pairs) flat or slightly raised, inconspicuous, the lower sur- face drying light olive-green, more densely pilose than above, the hairs 0.5 to 1.5 mm. long, appressed, ascending, or spreading, the venation rather prominent; petioles up to 1.5 or occasionally 2 cm. long, the pubescence similar to that of the stem; spikes solitary or, if several, fascicled, or often forming a loose panicle (the terminal spike subsessile, the lateral ones pedunculate) 5 to 17 cm. long, 5 to 7 cm. broad, the peduncles up to 4 cm. long, the pubescence that of the stems, the rachis white-cottony; bracts closely imbricate, rhombic-ovate, 9 mm. long, 6 to 6.5 mm. wide at 1.5 mm. above base, acute, minutely puberulous or glabrate, pubescent or pilose toward base, coriaceous, ciliate, the costa and several pairs of nerves on either side prominent below the middle of the bract, the ocelli 3 to 6, elliptic, about 1 mm. long and 0.75 mm. wide, flat, varnished, variously grouped, contiguous or sometimes fused; bractlets lanceolate, 8 mm. long and 2 mm. wide, carinate, the keel densely white-pilose, the hairs very fine, about 0.6 mm. long, ascending, striate-nerved, the nerves curved at base, the margins thin; calyx 8 to 8.5 mm. long, the posterior segment narrowly ovate, 3 mm. wide near middle, the anterior pair lanceolate, 2 mm. wide, the lateral pair linear-lanceolate, 1.5 mm. wide, these obtusish and apiculate, the others acute, all minutely puberulous, ciliate broad, the upper lip erect, 2 cm. long, 7 mm. wide at base of lobes, these lanceolate, 1 cm. long, 4 mm. wide, slenderly acuminate, the middle lobe of the lower lip spreading, narrowly elliptic, 2.5 cm. long, slightly more than 6 mm. wide, acute, the lateral lobes adnate in part to the upper lip, their free portions 2 mm. long and 1.5 mm. wide, rounded at tip; stamens exserted about 15 mm. beyond the mouth of the corolla tube, the anthers 6 mm. long, 1 mm. broad, the basal lobes minutely apiculate, the cells dorsally pilose; pistils glabrous; capsules
not seen.
Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, No. 1774446, collected in woods and thickets of Zurubi, Caño Cuduyari, Comisaría of Vaupés, Colombia, 200 meters altitude, October 15, 1939, by J. Cuatrecasas (No. 7223).  

BOYACA: In warmer valleys, Dawe 900 (K).
CAQUETA: Woods at Sucre, 1,000 to 1,300 meters altitude, April 4, 1940, Cuatrecasas 9052 (US).
META: Woods of Caño Quenane, January 25, 1942, Dugand & Jaramillo 3117 (US). About 12 km. southeast of Villavicencio, 400 meters altitude, January 9, 1939, Haught 2536 (US).
PUTUMAYO: Wet woods along Río Putumayo at Puerto Ospina, 230 meters altitude, November 14, 1940, Cuatrecasas 10562 (US). Puerto Porvenir, above Puerto Ospina, 230 to 250 meters, November 19, 1940, Cuatrecasas 10656 (US). VAUPÉS: Mesa La Lindosa, Idrobo & Schultes 631 (US); Río Guaviare at San José del Guaviare, 240 meters altitude, November 6, 1939, Cuatrecasas 7478 (US).
Aphelandra pilosa resembles, in most respects, A. pulcherrima but unlike that species it has a dense, more or less spreading pubescence covering the upper portions of the stems and underside of the leaf blades, the hairs being up to 2 mm. long, instead of about 1 mm., as in A. pulcherrima. The name pilosa, hairy, alludes to this characteristic pubescence.