This species is characterized by its rather dense hirsute to strigose pubescence, well developed leaves and stipules, elongated inflorescences, relatively well developed bracts, small corollas with tubes 2-3 mm long, and bright blue fruits. The bracts are narrowly triangular to lanceolate and 4-15 mm long. The inflorescences are produced in a terminal position but characteristically are quickly displaced to pseudaxillary by growth from one of the axillary buds beside the peduncle. An illustration was presented by Andersson & Ståhl (Andersson et al., 1999: p. 128, fig. 36).

The form of the inflorescences of some Costa Rican plants of Bertiera bracteosa varies notably in the development of the secondary axes, to the degree that some fruiting plants do not appear to belong to the same species as flowering plants. In most plants of this species and in flowering plants in Costa Rica, these axes are quite short so the flowers are subcapitate or only shortly separated and well enclosed by the bracts. As flowering proceeds and the fruits develop, these secondary axes usually elongate a least a bit and become cincinnoid. In most areas these secondary axes are 0.5 cm long (essentially a subcapitate group of flowers that is subsessile on the primary axis) to 1 cm long (shortly developed). In many of the plants of Bertiera bracteosa in Costa Rica, the secondary axes elongate to become 4-5 cm long. The degree of development of these axes varies within a local area, and no geographic pattern is evident across the country in this variation.

Bertiera bracteosa was classified for a long time in Gonzalagunia, which is similar, but Andersson & Ståhl (1999) demonstrated its placement in Bertiera.