C. baducca sensu auct. non Rheed. ex L.
Shrub or small tree, to 5 m tall. Leaves simple; petioles quite variable in length, very short or to 20 cm long (variable even on the same branch), pulvinate at both ends; blades oblong-lanceolate to oblong-oblanceolate, mostly acuminate, acute to obtuse at base, 4.5-22 cm long and 1.8-9 cm wide (variable in size even on the same branch); midrib raised above. Flowers in short racemes of few flowers in the upper leaf axils; pedicels 1-3 cm long (2-4 cm long in fruit); sepals 4, bluntly triangular, ca 1.5 mm long, open in bud, each with a minute disk gland at base within; petals 4, ovate, ca 1 cm long, obtuse at apex, white; stamens ca 100, 1.5 cm long; pistil oblong, ca 3 mm long, on a gynophore ca 1 cm long (ca 3 cm long in fruit). Fruits oblong, fleshy, tardily dehiscent siliques to 9 cm long, becoming maroon when mature, ca 1.5 cm wide, dehiscing irregularly lengthwise to expose seeds, the seeds ca 20, sticky, ± spherical, ca 8 mm diam. Croat 5861, 7802.
Common throughout the forest. Seasonality uncertain. Flowers in January and February and from July to September. White-faced monkeys eat the fruits from November to February (Oppenheimer, 1968), but fruits are also seen from March to May.
The species is distinguished by a combination of many-staminate flowers, petioles of greatly differing lengths, and purple siliques borne on a gynophore.
Southern Mexicoto Peru and Brazil; West Indies. In Panama, ecologically variable; known from tropical moist forest on both slopes in the Canal Zone and in Los Santos, Panama, and Darien, from tropical dry forest in Panama (Taboga Island), from premontane wet forest in Panama, and from premontane rain forest in Darien (Cerro Pirre).