Terciopelo Tree, to 30 m tall; trunk buttressed; bark smooth, black; branchlets grayish, but generally hidden by a dense golden puberulence when young. Leaves alternate to subopposite; petioles 5-15 mm long, densely golden-puberulent when young; blades elliptical to obovate, rounded to obtuse at apex, +/- cuneate-obtuse and equilateral at base, 6-8 (15) cm long, 3-5 (7.5) cm wide, entire to sinuate, becoming glabrous above, lighter and glabrous below except on veins; midrib and major lateral veins prominent. Inflorescence 3-7 cm long, umbellately 1-3 flowered, axillary or terminal; peduncles 1.5-5 cm long; pedicels to 1.5 cm long. Peduncles and pedicels reddish, glabrate in age; flowers apetalous, maroon; sepals 4, valvate, ovate, ca 7 mm long, the margins densely puberulent; stamens many, ca 4 mm long, pale yellow; filaments scarcely 1 mm long; anthers opening by an apical pore, the connective produced into a fugacious awn ca 1 mm long; ovary 2-2.5 cm long, tufted-puberulent; style glabrous above, 4-lobed; stigmas 1 per lobe. Capsules ellipsoid, to 2.5 cm long; valves 4, 3-4 mm thick, densely pubescent, the trichomes easily detached, reddish, antrorsely barbed, ca 3 mm long; seeds 1 or 2, ellipsoid, ca 1 cm long and 5 mm wide, nearly enveloped in an aril, the aril firmly attached in basal fourth of the seed. Croat 9778. Central Mexico to Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone (from BCI to the Pacific coast), Chiriqui, Veraguas,Los Santos, Herrera, Coclé, and Panama.