C. confusa Sandw. Small epiphytic or hemiepiphytic shrub, usually less than 30 cm long, rooting at nodes, glabrous or with most parts minutely puberulent. Leaves thick; petioles 5-15 mm long; blades variable, ovate to obovate, obtuse to short-acuminate at apex, acute at base, 1.5-6 cm long, 1-2.5 cm wide; lateral veins indistinct. Flowers axillary, 1-4 borne together; pedicels puberulent; calyx puberulent, deeply 5-lobed, ca 5-7 mm long, the lobes slender, the dorsal lobe depressed by corolla, the 4 erect lobes with 3 glands in the sinus, the lateral lobes ca 6 mm long at anthesis; corolla bilabiate, 1.9-2.2 cm long, white, mottled with red inside below the 2-lobed side of lip, minutely puberulent on 3-lobed side, the limb 9-10 mm wide, the lobes rounded, broader than long, the tube gibbous, extending prominently below calyx; stamens 4, included, the longer pair to 2.5 cm long; filaments curved at apex, widened toward base; anthers oblong, to 2 mm long, coherent in pairs or free; staminodium very small; ovary superior, oblong-ovoid, puberulent; style longer than stamens; stigma 1, scoop-shaped, held just above stamens; both stamens and stigmas +/- appressed against the 3-lobed side of corolla; nectary of 1 large dorsal gland. Berries subglobose, 10-12 mm long, 7-9 mm wide, red, +/- glabrous; seeds reddish, slightly curved, ca 2 mm long and 0.7 mm wide, longitudinally striate. Croat 5916. Frequent in the forest, usually rather high in trees. Flowering and fruiting throughout the year, but most abundantly in the rainy season. Fruit development time is probably about 1 month. Like most other members of the genus, C. crassifolia is usually associated with ant nests, though many seedlings are found in cracks in tree bark and are not attended by ants. The ant nests frequently also contain Aechmea tillandsioides (22. Bromeliaceae). The fruit is perhaps most logically adapted for bird dispersal, but ants may carry the seeds away after the fruits have been pecked open by birds. It is possible that fruits occasionally dehisce. In the greenhouse, H. Wiehler (pers. comm.) has shown that, if plants are not watered for a few days while the fruit is still immature and then watered excessively as the fruit ripens prematurely, the fruit will break open from the excess water. Guatemala to Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, and Peru; Trinidad; from sea level to 1,400 m. In Panama, known principally from tropical moist, premontane moist, and tropical wet forests all along the Atlantic slope and from tropical moist forest in Darien; known also from premontane wet forest in Colón (Santa Rita Ridge) and Panama (Cerro Jefe).