Couroupita Aubl.

Canopy trees. Leaves born in apical whorls of 7-40 leaves, medium to large-sized (8-30 cm long), usually with hirsute pubescence in axils of secondary veins, these apparently domatia. Inflorescences cauliflorous or rarely ramiflorous on oldest branches, usually racemes or infrequently once-branched paniculate arrangements of racemes, growth of rachises indeterminate. Flowers zygomorphic; sepals 6; petals 6; androecial hood absent (C. nicaraguarensis or flat, staminodes anther-bearing; ovary 6-locular, ovules numerous, attached to bilamellar placenta along length of locule. Fruit indehiscent, dropping from tree at maturity, globose or nearly so, pericarp fragile, often cracking when fruit hits ground. Seeds numerous, ovate to lenticular, 10-15 mm long, embedded in pulp which oxidizes bluish-green when exposed to air, dry pulp breaks into 6 segments, these crescent shaped when viewed laterally, wedge-shaped in cross section, the testa pubescent; cotyledons leaf-like, opposite.In Central America from El Salvador into eastern Panama and in South America in Amazonia and the Guianas.