Tree, 13-40 m tall, to 75 cm dbh; buttresses +/- lacking or to 1 m; outer bark reddish-brown and scarcely fissured on younger trees, becoming loosened in squarish patches in age, the older parts becoming marked with shallow depressions; inner bark granular with darker lines in tangential section; stems with dense, short, brown, appressed pubescence, the younger stems ribbed; sap sweet, with pleasant aroma. Petioles 8-15 (25) mm long, canaliculate; blades elliptic to oblong-elliptic, abruptly short-acuminate (rarely with a long acumen), cuneate to attenuate at base, decurrent onto petiole, mostly 10-20 cm long, 5-9 cm wide, +/- glabrous above, the pubescence below short, whitish, appressed; reticulate veins prominulous, very closely spaced. Panicles terminal and from axils of older leaves, 10-15 cm long; flowers bisexual, greenish-yellow, ca 3 mm long; hypanthium lobes 6, ovate, thin at margin, pubescent inside and out; stamens 9, 2-celled, the connective produced and +/- fleshy at apex, the outer series of 6 somewhat shorter than the inner 3,1.3-1.7 mm long, pubescent and ciliate, subtended by and alternating with 6 fleshy yellow glands; filaments stout, fused to perianth lobes, the inner series of 3 stamens alternating with shorter ovate staminodia; ovary glabrous; style simple, shorter than inner stamens. Fruits lacking a cupule, oblong or ellipsoid, shiny, to 5.5 cm long and 2 cm diam, purple-brown, with a single embryo and 2 large yellow-green cotyledons surrounded by a thin green pericarp ca 1.5 mm thick. Croat 12928, 14063. Not confused with any other species. Wilson (1971) reported that the fruits are taken by the bat Micronycteris hirsuta. Monkeys eat the thin outer skin and the scant mesocarp, discarding the remainder. Seeds germinate soon after falling. Costa Rica and Panama; West Indies. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone and from tropical wet forest in Los Santos (Coabal). Possibly also in Ecuador (Little 6294). See Fig. 248.