Dioecious tree, mostly 5-10 m tall; trunk moderately slender, the young branches stout, ferruginous-hirtellous to glabrate. Petioles densely short-pubescent; stipules 7-11 cm long; mature leaves usually divided more than halfway to center, scabridulous and minutely arachnoid above, paler and minutely cinereous below; lobes usually 9-15, rounded to shortly acuminate at apex, somewhat to moderately narrowed at base, the lower free margin held +/- flat to moderately erect, the leaves thus +/- pleated, the area surrounding the petiole flat to 3-4 cm in all directions from center; veins, petioles, and spathes often +/- maroon. Staminate spathes (11) 12-20 cm long, ca 2 cm wide at anthesis, gradually acuminate, the spadices usually in clusters of 3-9, (10) 12-18 cm long, 3-4 mm thick, subsessile or with puberulent stipes to 1 cm long, the common peduncle 8-12 cm long; pistillate spathes 16-20 cm long at anthesis, usually arachnoid on outside, villous inside, the spadices in clusters of 2-4,17-30 cm long, ca 5 mm diam at anthesis, 6-9 mm diam and fleshy in fruit, the common peduncle 8-20 (24) cm long, usually rough with short erect trichomes. Achenes ovate to broadly oblong, somewhat flattened, the edges acute, 3.3-3.7 mm long, to 2.7 mm broad, tan to white. Croat 11716, 11800. Very common along the edge of the lake, particularly the northern and the eroded eastern shorelines; occasional in the forest, especially in tree-fall areas, some trees being found in the older forest. Flowers and fruits throughout the year. Southern Mexico to Panama, Ecuador, and probably Colombia. In Panama, a wide-ranging and ecologically variable species and a characteristic tree of tropical moist forest (Holdridge & Budowski, 1956); known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, Veraguas, Panama, and Darien (no doubt elsewhere also), from premontane wet forest in Panama, from tropical wet forest in Colon and Darien, and from premontane rain forest in Panama (summit of Cerro Jefe).