Dioecious tree, 5-15 m tall, usually less than 30 cm dbh; trunk often forming sucker shoots near base. Leaves alternate, simple; stipules inconspicuous, less than 0.5 mm long; petioles 1.5-3.5 (9) cm long, short-pubescent; blades elliptic or ovate-elliptic, long-acuminate, obtuse at base, 8-18 cm long, 3-6.5 cm wide, pinnately veined, 3-veined at base, minutely and sparsely stellate-pubescent below and on veins above, becoming glabrate, remotely crenate-dentate, with 2 foliar glands at base of blade. Spikes stellate-pubescent, the staminate axes unbranched, mostly 2-18 cm long, the pistillate spikes 2-8 (10) cm long; staminate flowers apetalous, subsessile, to 1.5 mm diam, clustered with 3 or 4 per bract; calyx lobes 3 or 4; stamens 7 or 8, in 2 series; filaments +/- equaling anthers, confluent with disk; pistillate flowers apetalous, solitary, densely pubescent; calyx 4-lobed to about midway; ovary ellipsoid, ca 1.5 mm long, densely pubescent; styles 2, more than twice length of ovary, usually persisting in fruit, simple, +/- divergent, 7-10 mm long; stigmatic surface glabrous. Capsules subglobose, green to brown, 2-valved, 5-7 mm long, 6.5-8.5 mm wide, the valves falling free at maturity to expose bright red seeds; seeds 2, 1 per carpel, ellipsoid, 4-6 mm long, displayed on the central columella, flattened on 1 side, the testa brown, irregularly tuberculate, covered with a bright red, thin, pulpy layer. Croat 10914, 14546, 14619. Frequent in the forest. Flowers from March to June, with the fruits maturing mainly from May to July. According to R. Foster (pers. comm.), individuals may flower twice in quick succession following the start of the rainy season. Flowers of the second wave are produced at the time the first fruits ripen. Costa Rica and Panama. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, Panama, and Darien.