This species is characterized by its dense, often whitened pubescence, and pink to purple corollas. These plants were previously included in Tournefortiopsis reticulata, but that other species was circumscribed differently by Taylor & Berger (2021) and Tournefortiopsis crassifolia is clearly distinct from it. 

Tournefortiopsis triflora was described as a species most closely related to Tournefortiopsis sopkinii, but the single specimen on which this name was based was included by Taylor & Berger (2021) in Tournefortiopsis crassifolia, and seems to match some other specimens from further soutn in the Cordillera Occidental that also included by Taylor &  Berger in this other species,.and not studied by Pérez & Alzate.