This species is distinctive in its inflorescences with the higher-order axes becoming spiciform and the secondary axes often in verticels of 3, regularly developed bracts, subsessile flowers, rather small orange fruits, and flattened pyrenes with 1-3 abaxial ridges and usually thickened or inflated margins. There appears to be latitudinal clinal variation, with plants from Ecuador through north-central Peru generally having ternate secondary axes and smaller bracts, and plants from southernmost Peru through Bolivia having more often paired secondary axes and larger bracts. Plants from the northernmost and southernmost parts of the range of this species appear distinctive, but they also appear to be linked by morphologically intermediate plants in central Peru and Bolivia.