Evergreen shrub or tree 2-15(-18) m. tall, with thick canopy and dark brown-black finely reticulate bark; branchlets densely shortly setulose-pubescent and often with longer brownish hairs on young shoots. Leaves sometimes slightly bullate, usually drying dull dark reddish brown above, paler beneath, less often blackish green, sometimes red and yellow variegated in life, obovate, oblong or rounded oblong, (2.3-)5.6-13.7 cm. long, (1.1-)3.3-8.5 cm. wide, shortly acuminate at the apex, rounded to subcordate at the base, glabrous above, sparsely to densely setulose-pubescent, especially along the nerves beneath and margin hairy but often ultimately ± glabrous everywhere; midrib and petiole sometimes red in life; lateral nerves in ± 7 pairs, prominent beneath, the venation closely reticulate darker than the lower surface but not raised; petiole up to 1 cm. long. Male flowers 5-merous in usually 2-5-flowered axillary cymes; peduncle up to 1 cm. long; pedicels up to 1.8 cm. long; bracts opposite, linear, 3-5 mm. long, puberulous with seta-like hairs and glandular hairs; calyx 2.5-4 mm. long; calyx-lobes triangular to lanceolate, strigulose- and glandular-puberulous outside, tomentellous inside; corolla white or greenish cream, up to 6 mm. long, lobed almost to the base; corolla-lobes obtuse, spreading or reflexed, glabrous or with a few downwardly directed hairs on mid-petaline areas and scattered small glandular hairs outside; disk thin, fimbriate; stamens 10, cream, 3 mm. long with filaments 0.5 mm. long, glabrous; anthers lanceolate, 2.5 mm. long, densely strigose; rudimentary ovary conical, tomentellous, with 8-10 locules; styles 4-5, mostly glabrous. Female flowers similar to male, 4-5-merous; staminodes 10, 1.5 mm. long; antherodes densely hairy; ovary conical, 2 mm. long and wide, tomentellous, with 8-10 locules; styles 4-5, united only at the base, glabrous. Fruit yellow, depressed-subglobose, 2-3.3 cm. in diameter, ± densely shortly pubescent; accrescent calyx-lobes lanceolate, 1.2-1.8 cm. long, acute, reflexed. Seeds 10 or fewer, reddish brown, oblong-ellipsoid, 1-1.6 cm. long, 7-9 mm. wide, shining; testa deeply and reticulately grooved; endosperm deeply ruminate. Fig. 2/13; fig. 6/5-6.
