Plants moderately stout, usually densely puberulent, 2-4 (6) m tall; stem straight, usually 2-5 cm diam, the lower 1.5-2 m leafless. Leaves narrowly ovate to narrowly obovate, gradually acuminate, narrow and cuneate to rounded at base, all but the uppermost 30-65 cm long, 7-17 cm wide, shortening at apex and merging inconspicuously with leaflike bracts, puberulent on both surfaces, the trichomes soft, to 1 mm long. Inflorescence broadly ovoid; bracts green (red at base within), all with foliaceous tips, 1.5-6 cm long or more, the outermost pubescent like the leaves, those on inner whorls glabrous; bracteole 2.5-4 cm long, red; calyx to 16 (22) mm long, red, with 3 acute lobes; corolla white, 7-8.5 (10) cm long, 3-3.5 cm wide, the lobes 3, almost free; stamen 5-8 cm long; labellum 7.5-11 cm long, white with red to pink lines, sometimes white-pubescent within on either side of stamen, its central lobe fimbriate, usually marked with yellow. Capsules 1-3.5 cm long; seeds irregularly 3-sided to round, 2-3 mm long, black, enveloped in a white lacerate aril. Croat 6388. Apparently uncommon; collected at Rear # 8 Lighthouse Clearing. Flowers in the rainy season, chiefly from June to September. The fruits are shed usually by the end of the rainy season. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, Panama, and Darien, from premontane moist forest in the Canal Zone and Panama, from premontane wet forest in Chiriqui, and from tropical wet forest in Panama.