High ridge moho

Heliocarpus americanus is a fast-growing pioneer tree in the Malvaceae (formerly Tiliaceae) reaching 10–25 m in height with a slender, straight trunk and a thin, open crown. The bark is greyish-brown, smooth in young trees and shallowly fissured with age, the inner bark very fibrous and mucilaginous, traditionally peeled in long strips for cordage. Leaves are alternate, simple, broadly ovate to nearly orbicular, 10–20 cm long, palmately three-lobed or merely angled, with a cordate base, a long-acuminate apex, finely serrate margins, and three to five prominent palmate veins; the petiole is long and the underside softly stellate-pubescent. Inflorescences are terminal panicles of many small, five-merous, whitish to pale pink flowers. The fruit is a small, laterally flattened capsule conspicuously fringed all around with long, plumose red bristles, giving the tree its distinctive star-shaped seed appearance. It grows in disturbed lowland to lower montane forests from southern Mexico through Central America to the Andes.