Shrub, or small tree 2–9 m. high with one or many stems; bole sometimes fluted at base; older branchlets and branches with large, sharp–pointed spines. Bark grey, smooth and peeling to reveal cream underlayer, or rough and blackish (? fire damage). Branchlets densely grey– or fulvous–pubescent or tomentose with spreading flexuose hairs. Leaves chartaceous, drying pale grey–green above and grey beneath with conspicuous yellowish nerves and veins; lamina 4 x 2–12 x 5 (16·3 x 9) cm., obovate or narrowly obovate, apex mostly rounded or obtuse, sometimes subacute or very shortly and bluntly subacuminate, base cunate, rarely rounded to subcordate; lower surface pubescent with spreading flexuose hairs; lateral nerves in 5–9 widely spaced pairs; tertiary nerves and veins forming a lax reticulum. Male flowers at ends of 0·2–0·7 cm. long, very hairy peduncles; bracts usually inconspicuous, 0·25 x 0·1 cm., very rarely foliaceous. Calyx 0·4–0·7 cm. long, botuliform, splitting at apex into 2–4 short teeth, densely pubescent. Corolla c. 1·3 cm. long, rotate, almost glabrous; tube 0·6–0·7 cm. long; lobes 4, ovate, acute and apiculate. Stamens c. 20; anthers apiculate, glabrous. Pistillode absent. Female flowers solitary or in 2–3–flowered cymules; peduncle densely hairy, 0·3–0·6 cm. long, upper part slightly swollen and greatly increasing in thickness as fruit develops. Calyx 0·45 cm. long, unlobed, urceolate in flower, becoming cyathiform in fruit, coriaceous and rugose in lower half, membranaceous distally, densely velutinous–tomentose outside especially towards the base, densely hairy within. Corolla similar to male. Staminodes absent. Ovary 0·3 x 0·2 cm., glabrous, style 0·2 cm. long, stout, simple, hairy in upper half, obscurely lobed at apex. Fruit c. 2·2 x 2 cm., ellipsoid to subglobose, glabrous except at base of persistent style. Seeds 8 or fewer.
