Monoecious shrub or small tree, usually 2-5 (6) m tall, glabrous but with puberulence on young leaves and inflorescence branches; stems thick, the leaf scars close and pronounced; sap red in time. Leaves alternate, simple; stipules minute, acicular, caducous; petioles 7-15 cm long; blades ovate, unlobed or with 5-7 shallow lobes, acuminate, cordate, 10-25 cm long, 9-15 cm wide; veins palmate at base. Flowers green, 5-parted, in short terminal dichasia becoming 10-25 cm long; staminate flowers ca 7 mm diam; pedicels 1-5 mm long, puberulous; calyx deeply lobed, the lobes rounded at apex and recurved; petals obovate to oblong, rounded and recurved at apex, to 6 mm long, densely villous inside, weakly imbricate and united below middle; disk segments free, ellipsoid, white, ca 1 mm long; nectar copious, enclosed by petals; stamens 8-10, to 6 mm long, in a close erect cluster; anthers oblong, to 1.7 mm long, extrorse; pollen pale yellow; pistillate flowers on pedicels 5-9 mm long (to 13 mm in fruit); calyx lobes +/- oblong-lanceolate, 7-9 mm long; petals as in staminate flowers; ovary glabrous; styles 3, slender, 1.5 mm long, connate in basal half, dilated into massive stigmas. Capsules +/- globose, smooth, turning yellow, 2.5-3 cm long, at first fleshy but eventually drying and dehiscent; seeds 3, 1.5-2.2 cm long, black, broadly oblong. Croat 10223, 12606. Cultivated in the Laboratory Clearing. The plant loses leaves for a short time during the dry season, then flowers shortly after the new leaves grow out at the beginning of the rainy season (April to August). These fruits mature mostly from June to September. The plant rarely flowers again at the beginning of the dry season, with the fruits maturing in the late dry season.