Glabrous, dioecious shrub or small tree, to 7 m tall; sap yellow, more abundant in twigs than in trunk. Petioles 1-3 cm long, canaliculate; blades broadly elliptic to obovate, acute to abruptly acuminate and +/- downturned at apex, cuneate to obtuse at base, 3-15 cm long, 2-6.5 cm wide, entire; lateral veins in 3-7 pairs, +/- impressed above. Panicles terminal, bracteate, less than 4 cm long; bracts acute, mostly 1-2.3 mm long; branches flattened; pedicels 4-13 mm long; flowers unisexual, the buds oblong; staminate flowers cylindrical in bud; calyx bilobed, spathaceous, splitting on one side and recurving to expose other parts, ca 1 cm long, greenish; petals 4, +/- equaling calyx, white, free, to 2 mm wide, hooked inward at apex; stamens many, 5-7.5 mm long; filaments white; anthers minute, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode to 1 mm high, with 4 sessile stigmas; pistillate flowers similar to staminate ones; ovary glabrous; styles 4, only slightly exceeding staminodia, persisting in fruit; staminodia numerous, ca 7 mm long. Fruits +/- obovate, 1.5-2 cm long, 4-lobed (at least when dry), splitting to expose red interior when ripe, 4-carpellate, each carpel with one seed; exocarp usually with scurfy, lenticellate areas; seeds oblong, ca 7 mm long. Croat 11164, Oppenheimer 1521. Occasional, in the forest. Flowering in the rainy season (June to September), rarely earlier during the dry season elsewhere. Some fruits develop to full size by August but most mature in the dry season. Known from Panama and Colombia (Chocó). In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone and Darien and from premontane wet and tropical wet forests in Colón, Panama, and Darien. See Fig. 392.