Huevo de gato, Lechugo, Venenillo Glabrous shrub or tree, to 7 m tall; sap milky, copious in all parts; stems grayish-brown, with a prominent interpetiolar ridge. Leaves opposite, the pairs sometimes unequal; petioles 3-10 mm long, (leaving a conspicuous scar); blades mostly oblanceolate, abruptly acuminate (sometimes falcate), acute to obtuse at base, 3-11(16) cm long, 1.5-4 (6) cm wide, bicolorous. Cynics of few flowers; peduncles short; pedicels to 1 cm long, with a single small bracteole attached ca midway on pedicel; flowers 5-parted; calyx lobes 1.5-3 cm long, irregular, 2 narrow and flat, 3 folded with 1 or more margins reflected; corolla pale orange, the tube 2.5-3.5 cm long, the lobes spreading, ca 5 cm wide, to 2.5-3.5 cm long, much contorted; stamens included, attached about 2 cm above base of tube, held in a tight circle by thick pubescent ribs of corolla wall; anthers ca 4 mm long, free; style equaling stamens; stigmas 2, minute. Follicles reniform, usually paired, ca 5 cm long, smooth on the outside, the apex acuminate, the very thick valves splitting open along upper side to expose fleshy orange mesocarp; seeds many, oblong to rounded, 5-10 mm long, papillate and deeply grooved. Croat 4223 11979. Mexico to northern South America. In Panama, ecologically variable; known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, San Blas, Chiriqui, Veraguas, Los Santos, Herrera, Panama, and Darien, from premontane dry forest in Los Santos, from tropical dry forest in Coclé and Panama, from premontane moist forest in the Canal Zone and Panama, from premontane wet forest in Coclé, and from tropical wet forest in Colon, Panama, and Darien. See Figs. 462 and 463.