Shrubs or trees, to 10 m. Stems armed, villous, glabrescent. Leaves deciduous; petiole 1-6.5 mm, glabrous; blade (dark green adaxially), broadly elliptic, obovate, oblanceolate, or spatulate, 6-38 × 3-23 mm, base attenuate to cuneate, margins plane, apex rounded to obtuse, surfaces glabrous, tertiary and smaller veins not prominent (inconspicuously reticulate), midrib flat, marginal vein present. Inflorescences 4-12-flowered. Pedicels 3-6 mm, glabrous. Flowers: calyx 1.8-3 mm diam.; sepals 5, 1.7-3 × 0.9-1.9 mm, glabrous; petals 5(-6), white to yellowish, median segment elliptic, 1.9-2.3 mm, lateral segments lanceolate, 1.3-2.3 mm; stamens 5(-6), 2.2-2.9 mm; staminodes lanceolate, 1.7-2.1 mm, minutely erose; anthers lanceolate, 0.7-1 mm; pistil 5-carpellate; ovary 5-locular, 0.9-1.3 mm, hirsute to strigose basally; style 2.2-2.8 mm. Berries purple to purplish black, ellipsoid, 8-12 mm, glabrous. Seeds 6-11 mm.

Flowering May-Nov. Scrub thickets, coastal marshes and hammocks; 0-100[-900] m; Fla., Tex.; Mexico; West Indies; Central America; n South America.

Sideroxylon celastrinum is widespread in the Neotropics. It differs from other North American species of the genus by its glabrous twigs, leaves, pedicels, and sepals, and its narrowly ellipsoid fruits. The fruits are edible (T. D. Pennington 1990).