Small to medium-sized tree to 30 cm d.b.h. and 25 m tall, the trunk usually erect and unbranched for much of its length, the crown open; twigs terete, glabrous to slightly and inconspicuously scabridulous. Leaves mostly opposite, sometimes subalternate, often ? fasciculate, 3-foliolate; leaflets rhomboid-elliptic, acuminate to acute, basally attenuate, the terminal leaflet 6.8-13.2 cm long and 2.6-5.9 cm wide, the lateral leaflets 4.7-10.7 cm long and 1.8-4.9 cm wide, membranaceous, secondary veins 5-7 on a side, somewhat lepidote or deciduous-lepidote, especially beneath, otherwise glabrous except for na ciliate fringe of short simple trichomes along the margins, well-developed chambers at the vein axils beneath, usually with a few plate-shaped glands along the midvein beneath, drying dark olive above, pale olive beneath; petiolules winged but usually differentiated from the decurrent leaflet bases, the terminal petiolule to 3.5 cm long, the lateral petiolules to 1.1 cm long, the petiole unwinged except on immature plants, furrowed above, glabrous, 3.6-7.2 cm long. Inflorescence of one or 2 flowers borne along the trunk, the pedicels lepidote. Flowers with a musky odor, calyx spathaceously split and ventral side, 2.6-5.0 cm long and 0.8-1.2 cm wide, basally lepidote, otherwise mostly glabrous with a conspicu-ously glandular epidermis when fresh; corolla pure white with a faint greenish tinge outside; tubular-campanulate with an inconspicuous saccate bulge in the floor of the throat, fleshy, 4.9-6.3 cm long and 1.5-2.5 cm wide at the mouth, the tube 3.6-4.5 cm long, the 3 lower lobes 0.8-1.0 cm long, the upper 2 fused half their length; glabrous throughout except for a few glandular-lepidote enations at the level of stamen insertion, the epidermis conspicuously glandu-lar; stamens subexserted, the anther thecae thick, 1.5-2.0 mm wide, partially divergent, 5-6 mm long, the anterior filaments 3.3-3.8 cm long, inserted 1.5-1.7 cm from the base of the tube, the posterior filaments 3.3-3.8 cm long, inserted 1.7-2.1 cm from the base of the tube, the staminode 4-16 mm long, sometimes totally fused to the corolla tube; pistil 5.7-5.9 cm long, the ovary narrowly cylindric, octagonal in cross section, 6-7 mm long and 2 mm wide, glabrous with a glandular epidermis, the ovules ? 6-seriate; disc annular pulvinate, 1.5 mm long and 5 mm wide. Fruit cylindric with conspicuous longitudinal ribs, suboctagonal in cross section, 44-50 cm long and ca. 6 cm wide when fresh and 2.8 cm wide when dried, waxy yellow when fresh, drying black, divided into a fleshy part outside the seeds and a fibrous core inside the seeds; seeds small, thin, 3-6 cm long and 8-9 cm wide, with a distinct, narrow mucilaginous wing when fresh.
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