Sangre, Wild pear, Zapote Tree' 10-30 (50) m tall; trunk to 75 cm dbh (sometimes buttressed to 1-2.5 m elsewhere); branches and leaves glabrous; branchlets often reddish; sap red in age. Petioles ca 1 cm long; stipules ovate, ca 2.5 mm long, stiff, adnate to petiole at base, persistent; blades mostly narrowly oblong-elliptic, shortly acuminate at apex, acute to rounded at base, 10-20 (30) cm long, 3-6 (8) cm wide, lustrous above, pale and +/- glaucous below, with small round flattened or sunken glands below, especially near margin. Panicles terminal or upper-axillary, 10-25 (35) cm long, the branches gray-tomentose, flattened at base; flowers minute, white, fragrant, sessile or very short-pedicellate; hypanthium, sepals, and edges of petals gray-tomentose; hypanthium +/- turbinate, ca 1.5-2 mm diam; sepals 5, triangular, ca 1 mm long and wide, spreading; petals 5, obovate, 2-3 mm long; stamens 15, glabrous; filaments ca 3 mm long, attached separately to disk; style 5-6 mm long. Drupes variable in size, reported to 20 cm long and 14 cm diam, green turning brown; mesocarp granular, yellow, juicy, sweet; seed usually 1, ovate-oblong, flattened, to 5 cm or more long. Croat 8695, 11851. Southern Mexico (both coasts) south to Colombia; reported also from the valley of the Magdalena (Jimenez S.,1970). In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Chiriqui, Panama, and Darien; Allen (unpublished) reported the species to be very common on the dry Pacific coast, and Johnston (1949) reported that it appears to prefer growing on well-drained terraces in ravines.