Shrubs or trees to 4 m; twigs puberulous-lepidote when young, glabrescent. Stems gray, smooth. Leaves usually alter-nate, sometimes inconspicuously pseudoverticillate; petiole to 6 mm, sparsely puberulent adaxially; blade usually elliptic, sometimes lanceolate or oblanceolate, 3-6 × 1-2 cm. Racemes to 3 cm. Pedicels ca. 1 mm; bracts lanceolate, 3-7 mm. Flowers: sepals 3-4 mm, margins entire or slightly erose; corolla lobes ovate to suborbiculate, 6-9 mm; stamens shorter than staminodes; staminodes suborbiculate, apex slightly 3-lobed. Berries 3-4 cm diam.; pericarp wrinkled. Seeds ca. 1 cm.

Flowering year-round. Disturbed sites; 0-10 m; introduced; Fla.; Mexico; West Indies (Cuba); Central America.

Subspecies macrocarpa is cultivated in Cuba and Florida, where it has escaped. A component of thorn scrub in its native habit, it has escaped into spoil deposits and fringes of mangrove forests in Miami-Dade County.