Tree, 5-30 m tall; stems with prominent leaf scars; younger parts and axes of inflorescences sparsely to densely stellate-pubescent. Petioles 1-3 (9) cm long; blades +/- elliptic to obovate, acute to abruptly acuminate, obtuse at base, 6-22 cm long, 2-10 cm wide, glabrous but with sparse, scalelike, stellate trichomes often on veins, the margins serrate to serrulate, the midrib usually arched, the lateral margins held somewhat erect. Inflorescences thyrsiform, from upper axils, to 20 cm long; pedicels 1-4 (6) mm long; flowers white, sweetly aromatic, usually 4-parted, rarely 3- or 5-parted; sepals +/- rounded, ciliate; petals +/- oblong, ca 5 mm long, rounded to emarginate at apex, spreading at anthesis, connate at base; stamens 20-30, to 4 mm long, weakly fused to base of petals and borne among villous tufts; anthers yellow, to 1.7 mm long, the thecae divergent, dehiscing chiefly at apex; ovary +/- obovoid, the locules equaling the petals, ca 1.3 mm long; styles usually 4, ca 1 mm long. Berries globose, ca 1 cm diam, usually (3) 4 (5)-sulcate, glabrous, white and fleshy at maturity; seeds many, ca 1 mm long, markedly reticulate to alveolate. Bangham 578, Salvoza 998. Southern Mexico to Colombia. In Panama, mainly in upland areas but, according to Hunter in the Flora of Panama (1965), one of the few species capable of spreading across lowland barriers. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, from premontane wet forest in Coclé and Panama, and from tropical wet forest in Coclé