Achiote tigre, Sangre de perro, Sangrillo, Pinta-mozo Shrub or small tree, to 5 m tall older stems with reddishbrown flaky bark; younger stems, petioles, lower blade surfaces, sepals, and axes of inflorescences densely stellate-tomentose with usually brown, sessile trichomes; sap yellow to bright orange, drying red. Petioles 1-2.5 cm long; blades extremely variable, mostly ovate to elliptic, acute to acuminate, obtuse to rounded or truncate at base, 7-17 cm long, 2.5-10 cm wide, green above, yellowish-brown to dark brown below (depending on extent of ferruginous pubescence), reddish-pellucid-punctate. Panicles terminal, mostly to 8 cm long; pedicels ca 5 mm long; flowers bisexual, ca 1 cm long, 5-parted, without conspicuous aroma; sepals thick, 7-9 mm long, acute, valvate, closing to protect ovary after flowering, spreading in fruit, at least some with one or more margins thin and glabrous; petals obovate, round at apex, to ca 1.3 cm long, yellowish to transparent with vertical orange streaks, glabrous outside, densely woolly inside; staminal columns 5, exceeding styles, less than 7 mm long, alternating with short woolly staminodia; anthers many, directed outward against woolly inner surface of petals; pistil ovoid, becoming 5-lobed, glabrous, sometimes punctate; styles 5, diverging outward between staminal columns, persisting in fruit; stigmas capitate; nectar copious, stored chiefly in the calyx. Berries ovoid, ca 1.5 cm long, firm, green and fleshy at maturity, the styles, calyx, and weathered petals persisting; seeds many, cylindrical, straight or curved, 2-2.7 mm long, in several vertical stacks, faintly reticulate. Croat 6695.