Suffrutescent herbs or shrubs, terrestrial and epiphytic; stems to 2 m tall, 5-10 mm in diam., yellowish hirsute. Leaves of a pair strongly unequal, the larger in a pair oblanceolate, 15.5-32.6 cm long and 5.4-10.7 cm wide, the apex acuminate, oblique at the base, serrate, above green, hirsute, the hairs transparent but reddish towards the leaf margins, 5-9 celled, below green, hirsute, the hairs transparent, 5-7 celled, more numerous on the veins, also 2-3 celled white appressed hairs; petioles 4-18 mm long; smaller leaves ovate, 1.2-5.0 cm long and 0.4-1.9 cm wide, long acuminate, oblique at the base, green, transparent hirsute. Flowers congested with many in each axil; bracts lanceolate, 1.2-3.6 cm long, subulate toothed, acuminate, orange, scarlet or greenish, reddish hirsute; pedicels 2-5 mm long, reddish hirsute; calyx lobes lanceolate, 1.7-3.2 cm long, acuminate to obtuse, 3-6 toothed, the teeth 2-5 mm long, orange to scarlet, reddish hirsute; corollas yellow or red striped, tubular, 2.4-2.7 cm long, ca. 4 mm in diam. above the base, becoming about 7 mm in diam., slightly contracted at the throat, the outside reddish to golden hirsute, the lobes subregular, erect, ca. 3 mm long; filaments glabrous below, slightly hairy above, the anthers included; ovary pilose, the style glabrous, the stigma shortly bibbed. Fruits ?orange, ca. 1.8 cm long and 1.0 cm in diam. Chromosomes 2n = 18 (Morley, 1967). The differences between C. purpurata and C. cinnabarina are of bract and sepal length and color and do not warrant taxonomic recognition. Some Pana-manian specimens of purpurata have red sepals which are ca. 1.9 cm long, and there seems to be variation of intensity of pigmentation of bracts and sepals.
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