Plants with branches spreading, to 10(-18) m. Stems: bark light gray, peeling off in short flakes, inner bark light brown; twigs green or grayish green when young, gray or whitish gray at maturity, glabrous or nearly so. Leaves: those of adventitious or juvenile shoots often much larger and of different shape from those of normal shoots; ocrea persistent proximally, deciduous distally, tan or brown, cylindric, 3-5 mm, coriaceous proximally, membranous distally, margins oblique, glabrous or puberulent; petiole 5-15 mm, glabrous or puberulent; blade pale green abaxially, green to dark green adaxially, lanceolate, ovate, obovate, or elliptic, (3-)5-10(-13) × (1-)3-5(-7) cm, length usually 2-3 times width, coriaceous, base acute to obtuse, margins often revolute, apex acuminate to obtuse or blunt, abaxial surface dull, adaxial surface shiny, minutely punctate, glabrous. Inflorescences (1.5-)3-10(-18) cm, glabrous, pistillate spreading or pendent in fruit; peduncle 1-6 cm, glabrous. Pedicels 1-3 mm, glabrous. Flowers: tepals round to broadly elliptic, margins entire, apex obtuse. Staminate flowers 1-3 per ocreate fascicle. Pistillate flowers: tube spherical to obpyriform, 9-14 × 6-10 mm, becoming fleshy. Achenes 6-10 × 6-9 mm, shiny. 2n = 22 (West Indies).

Flowering year-round. Sandy coastal hummocks, limestone forests; 0-10 m; Fla.; s Mexico; West Indies; Central America (Belize, Guatemala).

The wood of Coccoloba diversifolia has a specific gravity of 0.8 and is strong and brittle (E. L. Little Jr. et al. 1969).