Coccoloba spicata

Coccoloba spicata can be distinguished from many similar species of the genus Coccoloba by these key features:

It grows up to 16 m (52 ft) tall with hairless stems up to 20 cm (8 in) in diameter. Ochrea surrounding stems where petioles attach loosely are up to 9 mm (3⁄8 in) high, sometimes larger, and bear stiff, reddish hairs when they emerge but soon become hairless. Leathery, somewhat stiff leaves with petioles up to 2.3 cm (7⁄8 in) long bear blades up to 15 cm (6 in) and 10 cm (3+7⁄8 in) wide; they are hairless except for along veins on the undersurface. Blade margins bear no indentations, teeth or projections, and their tips vary from rounded to a somewhat pointed, while their broad bases bear two backward-projecting lobes of various sizes. Normally 5 to 7 secondary veins branch off the midvein. Inflorescences are up to 25 cm (10 in) long and in flower are so slender that they appear stringy. The inflorescence's rachis bears low bumps, or "nodules," crowded along its length, with 1 or 2 flowers arising from each one. Flowers and the later fruits bear no pedicels. Flowers functionally are unisexual. Flower clusters are loosely surrounded below by papery, collar-like, variously hairy modified leaves known as bracteoles, or "ocreolae," which are to about 1.2 mm (1⁄16 in) high. The perianth tube, or hypanthium, is about 2 mm (1⁄16 in) long. …

In Mexico, Coccoloba spicata occurs in the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Puebla, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán. Also it occurs in adjacent Guatemala and Belize.

The genus name Coccoloba derives from the Greek coccos, meaning "seed or berry," and lobos, meaning "capsule or pod," alluding to the fleshy hypanthium surrounding the fruit. The species name spicata is from the Latin spicatus, meaning "bearing or resembling a spike," referring to this species' long, slender inflorescences, which botanically are known as spikes.