[1] Aruna Weerasooriya and Richard Saunders, the botanists who first formally described the species, named it in honor of the French botanist Paul Alfred Pételot, who collected the holotype specimen that they examined.

Its flowers are arranged in groups of 3 or fewer on a rachis opposite the leaves.

Its stigma are shaped like narrow, inverted cones that are initially yellow, but turn purple.

The fruit are attached to the pedicel by stipes that are 6-7 by 1.9-2.1 millimeters and covered in grey-brown hairs.

The round, smooth fruit are 14.5-15.5 by 12-13.5 millimeters with a whitish waxy surface and covered in sparse, short hairs.