Tree, 5-30 m tall; trunk ca 55 cm dbh; bark thin, brown, with many small vertical fissures; branchlets glabrous to puberulent. Stipules foliaceous, +/- oblong, to 17 mm long; petioles to 7 mm long; blades +/- oblong, acuminate, usually broadest above middle, gradually narrowed to rounded or subcordate base, mostly 12-20 (25) cm long, 3-6 (9) cm wide, glabrous except sometimes on midrib below, with depressions in axils of larger veins below, entire to usually obscurely toothed, the teeth gland-tipped. Inflorescences paniculate-spicate, to 8 cm long; flowers bisexual, white, very numerous, sessile, angulate, congested on secondary rachises to 4.5 cm long; calyx ca 2 mm long, with 4 minute lobes; corolla lacking; stamens 4, at first included with the anthers directed inward, becoming exserted with the anthers turned outward and folding over apex of sepals; anthers as broad as long; style short; stigma simple, held just below and adjacent to anthers. Fruits baccate, globose to obovoid, to 2.5 cm long, glabrous at maturity; seeds numerous, ovoid, to 2 mm long. Croat 10152. Uncommon to rare. The tree usually loses its leaves in the early rainy season and immediately puts on new ones. Flower buds appear with the new leaves, and most flowers are seen from April through June. The fruits mature quickly, mostly from May to August. Mature fruits have been collected in Colón (Santa Rita Ridge) in January. Costa Rica to Colombia. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, San Blas, and Darién and from premontane wet forest in Colón (Santa Rita Ridge). See Fig. 400.