Shrub or small tree to 8 m. tall, the younger stems, petioles, inflorescence, and hypanthia thinly but closely stellate with minute brownish hairs; petioles 1-2 cm. long; leaf-blades commonly oblong-lanceolate, varying to oblong or somewhat oblanceolate, 1-2 din. long, a fourth to a third or rarely half as wide, acuminate, entire or undulate, acute or somewhat obtuse at base, glabrous above, glabrous or very sparsely furfuraceous along the veins beneath, 3-nerved, often also with conspicuous marginal veins, the veins beneath often pale; panicle widely branched, up to 10 cm. long, always minutely setulose at the nodes, bractless; flowers sessile; hypanthium cup-shaped, about 2 mm. long to the torus; calyx-lobes nearly semi-circular, 0.5-0.8 mm. long; exterior teeth small, conic; petals white, obovate, 2-2.5 mm. long; anthers dimorphic; anthers about 3 or about 2.5 mm. long, the con-nective of the larger expanded at base into a large lobe with its sides curved around the filament and its margins meeting beneath, that of the smaller prolonged at base into a narrow short dorsal lobe and two minute lateral lobes; stigma truncate.
Moist or wet, dense, mixed forest or thickets, sometimes in Manicaria swamps; at elevations up to 2,100 metres in Guatemala.
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