Miconia nordestina has been collected 80 times in four Brazilian states (Ceará , Pernambuco, Alagoas, and Bahia) since 1939, but remained undescribed. It shares its glabrescent leaves, lax inflorescences, and small flowers with white stamens with several species of Miconia that are difficult to distinguish from one another. It can be recognized by the decorticant branches covered with sessile-stellate trichomes, opposite leaves with basal nerves, entire margins, and glabrous or glabrescent abaxial surface, panicles without additional lateral branches and without accessory branches at the nodes, 5-merous flowers with regular, well-defined calyx lobes, the calyx tube glabrous inside, rounded to emarginate petals, weakly dimorphic stamens with appendaged connectives, and large and ventral inclined anther pores that are equal to or broader than the anther thecae, glabrous ovary and style. It always occurs in montane habitats between 250 and 1,100 m where it usually grows in riparian forests associated with rocky outcrops and on sandy or clay soil. This new species is described, illustrated, and compared with similar species occurring in Brazil and neighboring countries.