Dioecious tree, 15-30 m tall; branchlets slender, +/- terete, grayish-sericeous when young, glabrate in age; sap with sweet aroma. Petioles short and obscure or to 1.5 cm long; blades oblong-obovate to oblong-elliptic, moderately acuminate to long-acuminate (the acumen blunt), narrowly acute to attenuate at base, 7-15 cm long, 3-6 cm wide, weakly coriaceous, the upper surface glabrous, the lower surface inconspicuously and +/- densely appressed-pubescent, in age glabrous but with well-developed villous axillary tufts; midrib flat or slightly raised above, the lateral veins mostly in 7-9 pairs, mostly branching from midrib at ca 30° angle, the reticulate venation prominulous below. Panicles upper-axillary or subterminal, 6-15 cm long, branched several times, the branches grayish-puberulent, the trichomes becoming appressed on the upper parts of the branchlets; pedicels and hypanthium lobes gray-sericeous; pedicels ca 2 mm long; flowers unisexual, ca 3 mm long, whitish; perianth 6-lobed nearly to base, deciduous from the hypanthium usually as a unit, the lobes +/- equal, imbricate, ovate-elliptic, moderately thick, narrowly rounded at apex, papillate-puberulent within; outer stamens 6, suborbicular, somewhat flattened, ca 1 mm long, the filaments very short, merging almost imperceptibly with anthers, papillate-puberulent on outside and along medial part of connective on inside, the glands globose, about half as high as stamens, glabrous except near base, the inner stamens 3, to ca 1.5 mm long, the filaments papillate-pubescent, the anthers as long as filaments, narrowly ovoid, papillate-pubescent on outside at base; pistil ca 1.5 mm long; ovary ovoid, glabrous, about twice as long as style; stigma +/- triangular. Fruits +/- ellipsoid to narrowly ovoid, 4-6 cm long, 2-2.5 cm wide, minutely apiculate at apex, at first dark green with minute speckles of lighter green, becoming black at maturity; exocarp thin, black; mesocarp less than 2 mm thick, the 2 large cotyledons red; cupule 1.5-2.5 cm long, the upper part saucer-shaped, 1.1-1.4 cm wide at apex, 2-4 mm deep, green to brown or reddish-brown at maturity of fruit. Croat 8150, 9780,14846. Occasional or rare, in the older forest. Flowers in the late dry season (April). The fruits mature in the early rainy season (late May to July). One collection tentatively determined as this species (Shattuck 535) has juvenile fruits in early December. Allen (1956) reported the species (as O. williamsii P. H. Allen) to flower in May in Costa Rica. As the leaves of this species age, they become increasingly darkened on drying and the appressed pubescence of the lower leaf surface almost disappears. In addition, axillary domatia become better developed on mature leaves. Fruits of the species fall at about the same time as those of Beilschmiedia pendula, which are the same size and shape, but B. pendula differs in having yellowish-green cotyledons rather than the red ones of O. skutchii. Costa Rica and Panama. In Panama, known only from tropical moist forest on BCI.