Mangabe, Gargorán, Pavo, Pava Tree, to 25 (30) m tall; trunk to 40 (70) cm dbh; outer bark planar, thin, +/- mottled, marked with vertical rows of minute lenticels, these rubbing off easily; inner bark moderately thick, coarse, mottled tan and white; sap with sweet, strong odor; leaves and inflorescences clustered at apex. Leaves alternate, palmately compound; petioles to 1 m long with a basal ligule ca 1 cm long; petiolules 3-14 cm long; leaflets 7-12, oblong or oblong-oblanceolate, acuminate, obtuse to rounded or subcordate at base, 8-45 cm long, 3-19 cm wide, entire, glabrous above, densely and softly ferruginous-pubescent below with T-shaped trichomes; juvenile leaves much thinner, the lower surface with numerous, small, appressed, T-shaped trichomes, the upper surface with long simple trichomes much like those on the conspicuously ciliolate margins. Panicles compound, terminal, 15-50 cm long, with racemose umbels, the pubescence appressed, grayish, the branches subtended by small bracts; flowers bisexual, 5-parted, 7-15 per umbel; calyx cupuliform, 1-1.5 mm long; petals oblong, 1.5-2.5 mm long, glabrous inside; stamens 1.5-2.5 mm long; styles 2, free, ca 1 mm long, erect, spreading in fruit. Berries transversely oblong, flattened, cordate at both ends, ca 5 mm long and 8-10 mm wide; seeds 2. Croat 4394, 6853; 14584 (juvenile leaves). Frequent in clearings and along the shore. Flowers from July to December, but mostly in the late rainy season. Allen (1956) reported that the flowers are present from November to February on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. The fruits are common from January to May. The species is frequently visited by small birds during the fruiting period. Mexico to Brazil and Argentina; West Indies. In Panama, characteristic of tropical dry and tropical moist forests (Holdridge & Budowski, 1956; Tosi, 1971); known also from premontane moist and premontane wet forests in Panama and from tropical wet forest in Colon.