Herb, to 1.5 m tall, becoming woody in age, appressed-pilose. Petioles 5-15 mm long; blades narrowly lanceolate, acute to acuminate, acute to obtuse at base, 4-11 cm. long, 1-3.5 cm wide, entire, the trichomes above adnate to the leaf for part of their length; veins 5-7. Cymes terminating stems and branches; flowers 5-parted, often many; hypanthium and calyx densely setose, the lobes slender, 3-4 mm long; petals white (rarely pinkish), obovate, 6-8 mm long, ciliate; stamens 10, folded at anthesis' later unfolding to 5 mm long; anthers yellow, ca 3 mm long, tapered to apex, with a single terminal pore (eventually equaling or exceeding stigma), curved, lobulate at base; ovary superior; style erect; stigma simple. Capsules subglobose, ca 3 mm long; seeds many, cochleate, tuberculate. Croat 4611. The capsules are somewhat nodding at maturity and are irregularly dehiscent by slender cracks near the apex. The minute seeds pass through when the capsules are shaken in the wind. Southern Mexico to western Brazil and Bolivia; West Indies. In Panama, known principally from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, Chiriqui, Los Santos, Herrera, Panama, and Darién, known also from premontane moist forest in Panama, from premontane wet forest in Chiriqui, Coclé, and Panama, from tropical wet forest in CocIé (Atlantic slope) and Panama, and from lower montane rain forest in Chiriqui.