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Information Small deciduous tree 1.8-9 m. tall or sometimes a several-stemmed shrub; bark on bole and branches dark grey to almost black, very thick rough and deeply fissured longitudinally and transversely cracked, resembling crocodile skin, the fissures 1-2 cm. deep and 1-3 cm. apart; wood yellow with black heartwood. Leaves dark green and glossy red above when young, mostly drying blackish, mostly crowded at ends of very short spur-shoots, sometimes scattered on long shoots, oblanceolate to spathulate or elliptic, 2.5-6(-7) cm. long, 1.2-2(-3.5) cm. wide, rounded to subacute at the apex, cuneate at the base (rounded to subcordate fide T.T.C.L.), plane at margins, subcoriaceous, sparsely puberulous beneath especially on the midrib; lateral nerves in ± 7-9 pairs, together with tertiary nerves and veins all indistinct. Male flowers 2-12, scented, in rather lax cymes, borne below the leaves towards the base of spur-shoots and in axils of fallen leaves on long shoots; peduncle 1 mm. long; pedicels very slender, up to 4 mm. long; calyx 1.5-2 mm. long, glabrous except for minute marginal setulae; calyx-lobes 3-4, triangular, 1-1.5 mm. long; corolla cream, rotate, 6-8 mm. long, glabrous; corolla-tube 1.5 mm. long; corolla-lobes 3-4, ovate-triangular; stamens 9-12, 4-5 mm. long, inserted on the corolla-tube, one opposite to and 2 alternating with each lobe, usually distinctly exserted; anthers lanceolate, 1.5-2 mm. long, not apiculate, densely setulose; rudimentary ovary minute, glabrous. Female flowers solitary or 2-5 in fascicles, at base of spur-shoots and in leaf-axils and axils of fallen leaves on long shoots, subsessile; calyx 4 mm. long and corolla 9 mm. long otherwise resembling those of male; staminodes 3, ± 3 mm. long, attached to the corolla-tube and alternating with the lobes, minutely setulose at apex; ovary obovoid, 3 mm. long, 2.5 mm. wide, glabrous, with 6 uniovulate locules; style 1.5 mm. long, stout, ending in a large irregularly lobed fleshy stigma. Fruit yellow, fusiform, 1.5-2 cm. long, 9 mm. wide, glabrous, the style persistent; calyx ± 5 mm. long, the tube shorter than the rounded or obtuse lobes, much wider than the pedicel. Seed 1, ellipsoid; endosperm smooth. Fig. 2/8; fig. 5/3-5.