Slender shrub, l-5 m tall, often arching; stems glabrous in age. Petioles 1-8 cm long, bearing minute, furfuraceous, stellate pubescence; blades broadly ovate, acuminate, rounded to cordate at base, 12-22 cm long, 3-14 cm wide, minutely stellate-pubescent on veins below and above near base, minutely denticulate and ciliate, +/- maroon below; veins 5-7. Inflorescences axillary, small, paniculate, to ca 1.5 cm long, mostly below leaves; branches of inflorescence inconspicuously stellate-pubescent; flowers 4-parted, pale red, ca 4 mm diam; hypanthium +/- globose, 2-3 mm long, minutely pubescent, the trichomes borne on minute papillae, often deciduous; exterior teeth ending in deflexed setae ca 0.5 mm long; calyx lobes 0.5-0.7 mm long, markedly recurved with a submarginal projection forming the crown; petals oblong, rounded at apex, ca 1.5 mm long; stamens erect, ca 3 mm long; style ca 2 mm long, becoming directed to one side. Berries to 5 mm long, +/- globose, at first red-violet, turning purple-black at maturity; seeds minute, numerous. Croat 14551. Costa Rica to Colombia. In Panama, known principally from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, San Blas, and Darien; known also from premontane wet forest in Panama and from tropical wet forest in Darien.