Slender glabrous shrub, to 2.5 m tall; young stems weakly flexuous, the internodes with 2 ribs. Petioles 5-11 mm long; blades linear-lanceolate, tapered to apex, rounded at base, 14-25 cm long, (1) 2.5-5.5 cm wide, chartaceous, the primary lateral veins many and variable in number. Flowers greenish-white; pedicels clustered in axillary fascicles, ca 1 mm long, 6-12 mm long and jointed in fruit; calyx accrescent in fruit, the lobes 5, shallow; petals 5, valvate; stamens 10, free; anthers to 0.5 mm long. Fruiting calyces becoming bright red, longer than drupe, crateriform, to 2 cm diam, shallowly 5-lobed, spreading; drupes ovoid, ca 8 mm long, vertically ribbed, black with a single white seed. Croat 4190, 11131a. The leaves of this species are quite variable, the broadest leaves of some specimens approaching those of H. macrophylla Oerst. Standley 40877 was originally identified as H. macrophylla for the Flora of Panama (Nevling, 1961) and apparently formed the basis for Nevling's report of this species for BCI. Costa Rica and Panama. In Panama, growing mostly on the Atlantic slope at low and middle elevations; known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone and San Blas, from premontane wet forest in the Canal Zone and Panama, and from tropical wet forest in Colón and Darien. Reported from premontane rain forest in Costa Rica (Holdridge et al., 1971).