This small warbler inhabits humid montane forest on the eastern Andean slopes. It has olive and yellow plumage, a rufous-olive crown and narrow dark crown stripes. The Peru account places it at 750–1,500 m.
About 13.5 cm long, it is yellowish olive above and yellow below. It has a short, narrow yellow-olive eyebrow, dusky crown stripes, an olive-rufous centre to the forehead and crown, and a broken yellow eye-ring.
In Peru it occurs in the understory and bamboo thickets of humid montane forest on the eastern slopes of the southern Andes, at 750–1,500 m. Peru Aves describes it as uncommon there.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.