Mostly glabrous tree, to 15 m tall; sap milky. Leaves opposite; petioles ca 1 cm long; blades elliptic to somewhat ovate, acuminate, obtuse and decurrent on petiole and sometimes inequilateral at base, 8-22 cm long, 2.5-10 cm wide. Inflorescences axillary or occasionally terminal, usually branched, the clusters dense, umbelliform, the branches short, stout, woody; peduncles short, with short bracts; pedicels 3-5 mm long; flowers 5-parted; calyx 3-4 mm long, the lobes acute, stout, glabrate or puberulent; corolla white, ca 12 mm long in bud, minutely puberulent outside and on lobes inside, lobed to slightly beyond middle, the lobes slender, spreading at anthesis, the limb to 2 cm wide, the tube constricted just above sepals, 4-5 mm long; stamens included; anthers ca 1.8 mm long, connate, glued to stigma; ovary rounded above, minutely puberulent; style ca 1.5 mm long, club-shaped; stigma 1, +/- cupulate; nectary conspicuous, deeply lobed, more than half as high as ovary, the lobes usually 5. Follicles paired, fusiform, to 15 cm long and 2.3 cm wide, glabrous; seeds compressed, ca 2 cm long. Croat 5667, 13486. Throughout Central America. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone (Atlantic slope), Bocas del Toro, San Blas, and Darien and from premontane wet and tropical wet forests in Colón.