This species is characterized by generally small leaves that are shiny and glabrous, subcapitate or quite shortly cymose inflorescences with slender peduncles and a few flowers, medium-sized flowers, and medium-sized fruits.

This species is similar to Guettarda elliptica, and these have been confused by the long-time applicaiion of this name to plants of Guettarda elliptica in the Greater Antilles and Central America. Guettarda elliptica has leaves that are pubescent and not markedly shiny, larger inflorescences, and larger flowers and fruits, and Guettarda elliptica replaces Guettarda odorata in the western Antilles. Guettarda odorata and Guettarda elliptica are also similar to Guettarda divaricata, which was separated as a species allopatric to both of those in northern South America by Steyermark (1972). Guettarda odorata was treated by a number of older authors under the synonymous name Guettarda parviflora, and this has further contributed to taxonomic confusion among these species. 

The identity of the name Laugieria odorata is perhaps problematic, as noted by Howard (1989). Steyermark treated the species to which he applied this name as found widely in the Greater Antillies and not present in nothern South America, and noted that the species was described from Cuba and northern South America (Cartagena) and chose as the lectotype of this a specimen at P from Cuba. However, subsequent authors have not regarded Guettarda odorata as present in Cuba (e.g., Borhidi et al., 2017). Steyermark also considered that two differing plants were included by Jacquin in Laugieria odorata, and presented a non-parallel outline of the different characters of these and plants from northern Colombia. Steyermark's lectotype (1972: 360) of Laugieria odorata was idientified as "material in the Paris Herbarium from "La Havanne", Cuba (herb. Maire), which he cited as being collected by Jacquin. No such specimen is imaged under this name at P. Steyermark also referenced a specimen at P from Martinique that was identified by Lamarck as a reference for his application of this name, but that is not type material and so does not clarify the application of Jacquin's name. The Cuban plants treated by Steyermark as Guettarda odorata have not been reliably traced, but probably these are now included in Guettarda elliptica. Presumably the lectotype specimen chosen by Steyermark for Laugieria odorata corresponds to the species as he circumscribed it, and as noted by Howard and Steyermark, Jacquin's locality information is not always reliable so it is possible this specimen came from within today's range of this species. A sterile specimen at S curated as the type of Laugieria odorata does not correspond at all to either this species or Jacquin's protologue. 

The name Myginda bredemeyeri is synonymized here based on Liogier (1997), and has not been re-checked. The name Laugieria edechia is provisionally synonymized here based on annotations of specimens at P from the US Virgin Islands (as "Matthiola edechia"; images seen online).