Gallinero is a large shrub or a small tree, reproductive at 2-10 m. Bark is beige, corky with deep virtical ridges and fissures. Alternately arranged leaves, often not paired, to 25 cm long, are hairless, elliptic, entire, often with small wart-like galls. Flowers are white, bell-shaped, 1 cm long, occuring in dense fasciles in leaf axils or at leafless nodes. Flowers have 5 back-turned petals, green-spotted inside, anthers cream, fragrant. Fruit is a 7 mm orange juicy berry with many small flat seeds. Gallinero is native to Central America, and South America.