DC., Mém. Soc. Phys. Genève 3(2):86, t. 1. 1828 Glabrous tree, usually 10-15 (27) m tall; trunk to 1 m dbh; outer bark coarse, fissured, brown, thick; inner bark fine, thick, reddish, blending into lemon-yellow wood; sap lacking odor. Leaves deciduous; petioles 4-7 mm long; blades oblong-elliptic, acuminate, obtuse at base, 3-9 cm long, 1-3 cm wide, the acumen often broad at apex, the lower surface with a small pore at apex of midrib. Flowers 12-16-parted, solitary but clustered at apex in leafy pseudoracemes; pedicels 2-3 cm long, stout; bracteoles 2, small, deciduous, at base of flower; hypanthium campanulate, 2-4 cm long, nearly as wide, lobed ca one-third its length, the lobes acuminate; petals yellow or greenish-white, attached ca 5 mm below opening of hypanthium, obovate, 2.5-3 cm long; stamens many, long-exserted; filaments to 9 cm long, becoming reddish, united at base into a fleshy perigynous cup continuous with the ovary; ovary turbinate, ca 1 cm long; style to 10 cm long. Capsules woody, ellipsoid, 4.5-6.5 cm long, brown, pointed at apex; pericarp 3-5 mm thick; seeds numerous, oblong, 2-4 cm long, winged. Croat 7948. Common along the shore; occasional in the forest. Flowers from September to December. The fruits mature in the dry season (January to April). This genus was reported by Nevling in the Flora of Panama (1958) to have indehiscent fruits, but the fruits of L. punicifolia are irregularly dehiscent. After the exocarp of the fruit falls free, the mass of winged seeds are exposed and blow away, usually a layer at a time. Scattered from Mexico to Bolivia. In Panama, reported by Holdridge (1970) from low to middle elevations in moist areas and by Tosi (1971) as a characteristic component of tropical moist forest; known from tropical moist forest on BCI and in Panama and Darién and from premontane moist forest in Panama.