Tree, usually 4-6 (8) m tall; young branches densely ferruginous-pubescent. Petioles to 6 mm long; blades +/- elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate, obtuse to acute at base, 8-22 cm long, 3-10 cm wide, +/- glabrous above except on midrib, brownish-puberulent beneath, especially on veins. Flowers 1 or 2, opposite leaves, with short brownish pubescence; peduncles short with an ovate-cordate bract 4-16 mm long near apex; pedicels to 7 cm long; sepals 3, small, triangular; petals 6, +/- equal, free, at first green, becoming greenish-yellow at maturity, narrowly triangular, to 3 cm long, valvate or slightly imbricate at apex, the margins revolute, the apex curled inward; anthers many, sessile, to 1.7 mm long; carpels numerous, the styles held tightly together and exceeding anthers; ovules 2-8 per carpel. Monocarps densely short-pubescent, cylindrical, rounded on both ends, longer than broad, to 25 mm long, becoming soft and brick red at maturity on stipes to 1 cm long; seeds usually 4-6, disk-shaped. Croat 7361, 8793. Abundant in the forest, especially in the old forest. Flowers mostly during the dry season (January to April), rarely during the rainy season. Fruit maturity time uncertain, but the fruits are eaten by white-faced monkeys from October to May (J. Oppenheimer, pers. comm.). Known only from Panama, from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, and Darien.