This species is characterized by its robust leaves that are tough-textured and rugulose, its robust stipules that are triangular with numerous glands in their upper parts, its cymose inflorescences with rather small flowers that are sessile in several heads or glomerules, and its rather large fruits with smooth pyrenes. Zappi (2006) included these plants within the circumscription of Rudgea viburnoides based on these various characters, and distinguished it from the typical subspecies by its larger leaves and stipules, much larger fruits, and habitat in very wet forest in the western Amazon basin, rather than the gallery forest, savannas, and cerrado where the typical subspecies lives. However with more material now available these Amazonian plants appear to be distinct in a number of morphological features as well as their disjunct range and different habitat, and these plants meet the criteria for species in the taxonomic concept used here. This species is is generally similar to Rudgea grandifructa of Pacfic coastal Colombia.

• Zappi, D. C. 2006. Rudgea Salisb. Fl. Ecuador 79: 74–109.
• Taylor, C. M. & C. P. Bruniera. 2021. Rubiacearum Americanarum Magna Hama Pars XLVII. New species and a new combination for Rudgea in Panama and western South America (Palicoureeae). Novon 29: 132–151.