Pourouma Aubl.

Dioecious trees, frequently epiphytic and strangling when juvenile, the branches usually stout and hollow. Leaves spiral, basifixed, entire to deeply lobed; stipules fully amplexicaul and leaving a scar completely surrounding the stem. Inflores-cences repeatedly cymose, the flowers rather indefinitely glomerate at the ends of the branches. Staminate flowers with 4 nearly free tepals and 4 free stamens. Pistillate flowers with a fleshy cupular or tubular perianth, epigynous; stigma obscurely 2-lobed. Fruit a somewhat fleshy false drupe of moderate size. Perhaps 30 or more species from southern Mexico to Bolivia and Brazil. In Panama and Costa Rica the trees are known locally as guarumo, a name applied to certain other quite unrelated plants with a milky or mucilaginous sap.