Dioecious, hemiepiphytic tree, usually less than 4 m tall, growing in upper levels of canopy or on stumps along the lake shore, glabrous. Petioles 5-15 mm long; blades obovate, rounded or emarginate at apex, acute at base, 6-10 cm long, 4-6 cm wide, coriaceous. Inflorescences divaricately branched, terminal, short, shorter than the subtending leaves; axes flattened or quadrangulate, each branch subtended by a minute bract; pedicels short, the bracts apical, opposite, connate at base; flowers unisexual; buds globular or depressed-globular; sepals 4, concave, round, to ca 5 mm long, the margins +/- scarious, the outermost sepals smaller, united at base; petals 4, round, ca 5 mm long, greenish marked with violet-purple, very thick especially the inner pair; stamens 4, ca 2 mm long; filaments very thick basally, about as long as the anthers, narrowed below the anther; anthers introrse; pollen white, powdery; pistillate flowers similar to staminate ones but with the stamens to 2.3 mm long, nonfunctional, the anthers much shorter than the filaments; sepals and petals persisting in fruit; styles 4, short, persistent in fruit. Capsules subglobular, to 1.2 cm diam, often obscurely 4-sided and weakly 4-lobed at apex, 4-valved, 4-locular, green or tinged with purple at maturity, splitting open to display seeds; seeds many, orange, oblong, ca 3.5 mm long, enveloped in a red-orange matrix. Croat 14884, 16195.

1) The Catálogo de plantas y líquenes de Colombia states that the vouchers for this species are misidentified.