Small understorey evergreen tree or shrub up to 5 m high. Branches terete, stout, pale green with dark transverse scars of the caducous stipules. Leaves alternate, coriaceous, glaucÂous, paler below, elliptic, usually about 8-16 cm long and 4-8 cm broad, margin serrate to spinoso-dentate; petiole 1-2 cm, stout. Flowers very small, arranged in compound, terminal or axillary, elongated panicles which are shorter than the leaves, bearing small clusters of brown velvet buds, bracts deciduous, small; pedicels short. Sepals broadly ovate, 2-3 mm long, obtuse, finely ribbed fan-wise with a membranÂous margin, persistent. Petals erect, narrowly elliptic, about 5 mm long, yellow, deciduous. Stamens on very short filaments, fused at the base; apical connective-appendage ovate-acuminate, petaloid; thecal appendage small to minute. Ovary globose, glabrous, style erect, terete, exserted, stigma apical, minute. Capsule globose, obtusely 3-lobed, about 1-2 cm in diam., hard, brown, verrucose; seeds angled, about 6 mm
