Endemic to Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, this brushfinch has a black head, silver-gray cheek patch, slate-gray upperparts, yellow underparts, and olive flanks. It uses montane forest thickets and feeds on seeds.
The head and upper throat are black, the cheek patch silver gray, the upperparts slate gray, the underparts yellow, and the flanks olive.
It forages in thickets and undergrowth in montane forest. Seeds are listed among its foods.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.