Faramea stoneana is characterized by its relatively tall habit; medium-sized leaves with petiolate, elliptic blades with rather weak, undulating submarginal veins; conical, calyptrate stipules that are caducous and not aristate; inflorescences composed of three to 20 radiate peduncles that each bear two or three pedicellate flowers and usually a pair of deciduous foliaceous bracts; shortly tubular calyx limbs; funnelform, white corollas with the tube about as long as the lobes; and subglobose to oblate, somewhat small fruits. The inflorescences produce the flowers and whitened bracts almost simultaneously in a showy display, but this lasts for a short time, so few specimens have mature flowers. The foliaceous bracts are variable in size on an individual inflorescence of Faramea stoneana and usually fall off quickly, so neither these nor the caducous stipules are present on most specimens. Often the disk is relatively well developed, 0.8–1 mm high, and persists after the corolla has fallen with a distinctive cylindrical form.

Faramea stoneana was previously included in a broader circumscription of Faramea parvibractea by Taylor (various works) that included plants from a wide geographic and habitat range. Faramea parvibractea differs in its shorter stipules, 1–3 mm long; flattened peduncles each with three to 10 flowers arranged in fascicles or branched cymes; mostly longer calyx limbs 1–2 mm long; and fruits that are markedly laterally flattened. Faramea stoneana is also similar to Faramea anisocalyx, which is widely distributed in the Amazon basin and French Guiana and can be separated by its interpetiolar to shortly tubular stipules, white to violet or blue foliaceous bracts 15–60mm long, and blue corollas. Faramea stoneana can also be confused with Faramea corymbosa of French Guiana, Suriname, southeastern Venezuela, and northeastern Brazil, which can be separated by its shorter petioles, 0.1–0.5 cm long, tubular stipules, and peduncles without foliaceous bracts or with these up to 5 mm long.

The Central American plants differ from the South American plants of Faramea stoneana in pedicel length, calyx length, and corolla size, although a few specimens of each region overlap in the size of one of these structures with a few plants from the other region. Because these populations have separate geographic ranges and are almost but not fully distinct morphologically, they agree with the taxonomic concept used here of subspecies (Taylor & Jardim, 2020). These two subspecies do appear to differ fully in one unusual character, the arrangement of the anthers in the short-styled flowers: these are fully exserted in the South American plants but only partially exserted in the Central American plants. This character has not previously been noted as differing between taxa of Faramea, but the breeding biology of this genus is poorly studied.

Wet forest at 5–1600 m in southern Central America (subsp. stoneana), from southeastern Nicaragua to Panama,and in western South America (subsp. fasciculata) from northern and western Colombia to central Peru.

• Taylor, C. M. & J. G. Jardim. 2020. Rubiacearum americanarum magna hama pars XLVI: New species and taxonomic changes in Faramea of Central and South America (Rubiaceae, Coussareeae). Novon 28(2): 108–142.