Tree 8-20 m. tall, but sometimes flowering when a shrub 2.5-3 m. tall (Eggeling states shrub 3-4.5 m.); bole shallowly fluted; bark dark brown or blackish, very hard, appearing smooth but with shallow anastomosing longitudinal fissures; slash yellow; branchlets often with ellipsoidal or subglobose thickenings (?galls). Leaves drying grey-green or greenish brown above, darker beneath, elliptic-oblong or oblong-oblanceolate, 10-15(-26) cm. long, 2.5-6(-10) cm. wide, caudate-acuminate at the apex, rounded to cuneate at the base, glabrous, chartaceous; lateral nerves in 5-9 pairs, slightly impressed above, prominent beneath, anastomosing and curving very distinctly 0.5-1 cm. from the margin; petiole 0.5-1 cm. long. Male flowers strongly scented, 2-5 in contracted cymes, axillary or borne on the branches; peduncle 1 mm. long; pedicels 1 mm. long; calyx cyathiform, 6-8 mm. long; calyx-lobes 4, narrowly triangular, 3-4 mm. long, very shortly strigulose and with sparse black hairs on both faces; corolla yellowish cream, hypocrateriform, 1.6 cm. long, glabrous; corolla-tube 7 mm. long; corolla-lobes 4, elliptic, 9 mm. long, 6 mm. wide; stamens 20 in 2 rows, 4-5 mm. long, included; filaments partially joined to the tube, very shortly setulose; anthers lanceolate, apiculate, glabrous save at base; rudimentary ovary minute, glabrous. Female flowers axillary or borne on the branches, usually solitary; pedicel 2 mm. long; calyx larger than in male, 1 cm. long, lobed almost to the base, the lobes broadly triangular-ovate, subacuminate; corolla as in the male; staminodes 8; ovary ovoid-conical, 4 mm. tall, 2.5 mm. wide, glabrous, with 8-10 uniovulate locules; styles 4, slender, ± as long as the ovary terminating in lanceolate stigmas. Fruit with bloom at first, orange at maturity, subglobose or ellipsoid, 2-3 cm. long, 2-3 cm. wide, glabrous; calyx orange-brown, very accrescent, up to 4 cm. long, completely hiding the fruit, with tube hemispherical below, 1.5-2 cm. long and bearing 4 triangular lobes 1.5-2 cm. long, acute to acuminate transversely, undulate and with longitudinal folds, irregularly veined longitudinally; pedicel up to 5 mm. long. Seeds 7-8(-10). Fig. 3/17.
