Psychotria wawrae is a tree species that grows up to 5 meters tall. The stems have branches that are yellowish to dark brown. The leaves are simple and opposite, with blades that are oblanceolate to obovate, measuring (8.5–)15–29.2 cm long and 4–10.1 cm wide. The apex is rounded or obtuse and usually features a thick, stout point. The base is attenuate to obtuse or subcordate. The surfaces are usually glabrous, and the blades are coriaceous. Domatia are absent or extremely small and inconspicuous. The margins are revolute, with lateral veins numbering 12–15 pairs. The petioles are 0–2 cm long. Stipules are ovate–deltate, up to 10 mm long, often with the tip extended into a point. The flowers are arranged in inflorescences with a single main axis and 1–2 nodes of verticillate branching. The branches measure 8–20 mm long and are again verticillately branched, terminating in a 3-flowered cymule. The peduncles are 1.8–10 cm long. The central flower is usually sessile in each cymule, while the two lateral flowers are on short pedicels. The flowers are insect-pollinated, functionally unisexual, and 5-merous. The calyx is 4-6-lobed, glabrous, or pubescent, measuring 0.5–1.5 mm long at anthesis. The tube is usually shorter than the hypanthium, slightly expanded at the apex, truncate, or very slightly lobed, with an acute or obtuse apex. The corolla is white, 4-6-lobed, and rotate. The tube is less than 2 mm long, slightly expanded toward the apex, with a glabrous throat. The lobes are ovate, up to 3 mm long, and reflexed at anthesis. A nectary disk is present at the apex of the ovary. The stamens are as many as and alternate with the corolla lobes. The filaments are usually inserted on the corolla tube or throat and are 1–1.5 mm long at anthesis. The anthers are attached at the base, exserted at anthesis in functionally staminate flowers, narrowly oblong, 0.5–1 mm long, dithecal, and open by longitudinal slits. Staminodes are present in pistillate flowers. The ovary is inferior, occasionally partly so, or very rarely superior, up to 1 mm long and 2-celled, with basal placentation. There is one ovule per cell, which is erect and anatropous. The style is singular or as many as the carpels, about as long as the ovary, terminal, and slender. The stigmas are two-lobed or capitate, divaricate, and 0.2–0.5 mm long. In functionally pistillate flowers, the stigmas are divergent, while in functionally staminate flowers, they are smaller and appressed. The stigma is either dry or occasionally wet. The fruit is a drupaceous, orange, pyriform drupe measuring 7–15 mm long. The apex has a short, persistent calyx less than 1 mm long and usually very narrow. The pyrenes are 1-2(-4) per fruit, hemispherical in cross-section, with a thick and hard endocarp. Each pyrene contains one seed that conforms to the pyrene’s shape. The seed coat is thin and features a large T-shaped invagination on the ventral side. The endosperm is otherwise not ruminate but carnose. The embryo is small with flat, thin cotyledons. The seeds have well-developed oily endosperm, though they are occasionally scanty or absent. It is found in mesic forests between 120-850 meters.