Tree, glabrous; twigs smooth, terete or somewhat angled. Leaves coriaceous; petiole 5-8 mm long, adaxially deeply furrowed; stipules inconspicuous, reddish, ca 1 mm high; blades elliptic to elliptic-oblong, rather abruptly cuspidate or acumi-nate, 8-13 cm long, 4.5-7 cm broad, rounded or obtuse to subcordate at the base, with 8-13 major and several minor veins on each side. Inflorescences on stiff lateral branchlets or branch-tips, subtended by reduced leaves or by scale-like bracts. Staminate flowers with pedicel shorter than the calyx; calyx-lobes 5, thick, ovate, ca 7-9 mm long; petals dark, unguiculate, ca 0.7-1 mm long, 1.1-1.4 mm broad; disc cupuliform, shallow, margin thin, undulate; anthers ca 5 mm long; pistillodes massive, apically 3-lobed, ca 5 mm high, 2.5 mm in diam. Pistillate flowers with stout pedicel, becoming 1.5 cm long; calyx-lobes ovate-oblong, ca as long as in 3'; petals suborbicular, shortly unguiculate, finely denticulate, 1.5-1.7 mm long, 2-2.3 mm broad; ovary abruptly or gradually passing into the thick stylar column, the stigmas dilated, reflexed, crenulate at the ends. Capsule 2 cm long (in Panamanian specimen), thick; seeds ovoid, 1-1.5 cm long.
Dense primary forest and more developed areas of secondary growth, growing on floodplains and also in coastal forests. Moist or wet, mixed forest, at or little above sea level, often along stream banks in Guatemala.
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