This species s characterized by its shrub habit; elliptic, thin-textured leaf blades 11–27 × 4–13 cm; well-developed, laminar, papery stipules 7–21 mm long that are deeply bilobed with ovate lobes; pedunculate, paniculiform, green inflorescences with the ultimate axes scorpioid; quite small flowers with the calyx limb ca. 0.3 mm long and a white corolla 3.0–4.5 mm long; rather small, blue to white fruits 3.0–4.5 mm in diameter; and pyrenes with the adaxial face deeply excavated. The stipules are distinctive, and because of their interpetiolar form, the narrow sinus between the lobes, and their being sometimes tardily deciduous, this species is sometimes confused with Psychotria  The flowers of Palicourea carruthersii are apparently isostylous (i.e., monomorphic), but in spite of the many collections of this species, mature flowers are not well documented. 

The nomenclatural history of this species is somewhat complex, as outlined by Taylor (2022: 253). Among other things, this species was treated as Palicourea microbotrys by Borhidi, Delprete, and others, but that is not the oldest name for this species. 

Wet forest at 30–1500 m in southern Central America, from Nicaragua through Panama, and widely in northern to central South America, from Colombia and Venezuela to the Guianas and northern Brazil and through Amazonian Ecuador and Peru to northern Bolivia.