Evergreen trees or shrubs up to 25 m high but usually smaller, trunk up to 1 -5 m in diam., bark blackish grey, rough and fissured; branchlets and inflorescence tawny to ferruginous-pubescent. Leaves alternate, elliptic-oblong, obovate-oblong to oblanceo-late-oblong, coriaceous, sparsely sericeous below or glabrescent, with a dull gloss above, 4 • 5-14 cm long and 1-3 cm wide, usually about 8x2- 5-3 cm, apex obtuse to acute with a rounded tip, base broadly cuneate to rounded and often somewhat unequal. Male flowers sessile, 3 to many together in small pedunculate axillary cymes, tetramerous or pentamerous. Calyx lobed about halfway down, hairy, lobes ovate to lanceolate. Corolla narrowly urceolate, shortly lobed, densely sericeous. Stamens 10-16, often in pairs, filaments short, ovary rudimentary, hairy. Female flowers 4-5 merous (calyx rather frequently 4 lobed), solitary, shortly pedicellate in axils of Ihe leaves or from below old leaf scars on second year's growth; bracts 2, caducous. Calyx lobed rather more than halfway down, ferruginously sericeous, tomentose outside; lobes cordate acuminate and undulate plicate towards the base. Corolla 1-1 -2 cm long, urceolate, hairy outside. Staminodes about 7. Ovary densely pubescent 4-8 celled, with a single pendulous ovule in each cell. Disc fleshy, small, glabrous. Fruit subglobose yellowish to greenish, glabrescent; fruiting calyx with undulate lobes, about 1/3 the length of the fruit. Seeds 2-4, oblong, compressed, pale to dark brown, testa verruculose, glossy; endosperm somewhat ruminate near the testa. Fig. 9: 2.
