Glabrous tree, to 20 m tall, to ca 30 cm dbh; outer bark thin, minutely fissured (often bumpy below), peeling off easily after slash; inner bark +/- thin, granular, its outer surface reddish with irregular green strips; sap with a foul, pungent odor. Leaves shiny; petioles 9-16 mm long; blades ovate, acuminate, obtuse at base, 10-15 (23) cm long, 3.5-8 (14.5) cm wide, coriaceous, the primary lateral veins not conspicuous, scarcely lighter than the surrounding tissue. Flowers greenish-white, ca 2 mm long; pedicels ca 5 mm long, clustered in axillary fascicles, 8-12 mm long in fruit; calyx shallow, accrescent in fruit, the lobes 5, acute; petals 5, valvate, floccose within, boat-shaped; stamens 10; anthers 0.2-0.3 mm long and wide; ovary oblate-spheroid. Fruiting calyces conspicuously 5-lobed, shorter than drupe, ca 2 cm broad, red; drupes +/- globose (or broadly ellipsoid), 10-15 mm diam, white at maturity. Croat 12559, Foster 1491. Common in the forest. Flowers more than once per season, apparently mostly in the late rainy season November and probably earlier as well), with the fruits developing from January to April. A second flowering may occur in the early rainy season, but it is apparently smaller; the fruits of the second flowering have been seen mature in October and November.