Suffrutex, to 1(1.8) m tall, sparsely pubescent with simple and stellate trichomes. Leaves distichous; stipules lanceolate-linear, 1-1.5 cm long, ca 1 mm wide, persistent; petioles less than 1 cm long; blades narrowly ovate, acute at apex, obtuse to rounded at base, 4.5-10 cm long, 2-3.5 cm wide, serrate-dentate; palmate veins 3. Flowers 5-parted, solitary or in small pseudoumbels, axillary, 18-25 mm broad; pedicels to 12 mm long; calyx campanulate, to 1 cm long, foliaceous, lobed to near middle, moderately accrescent; petals obovate, to 1 cm long and 8 mm broad, yellow or white, oblique; staminal tube ca 4 mm long; filaments ca 2 mm long, with gland-tipped trichomes; style 4-5.5 mm long. Mericarps 5, 7, or 9 (rarely to 12), 3-sided, with 2 +/- parallel beaks, 2.5-4 mm long, often densely stellate-pubescent; seeds trigonous, ca 2 mm long. Croat 10249. Though beaks of the mericarps are not recurved to assist in epizoochorous dispersal as in S. rhombifolia, the closely parallel, usually densely stellate pubescence of the beaks serves nicely to attach the mericarps to passing animals. Throughout the tropics of Western and Eastern hemispheres. In Panama, abundant and widespread in tropical moist forest; known also from premontane moist forest in Darien (Punta Patiño), from premontane wet forest in Coclé Panamá, and Darien, and from tropical wet forest in Colón.