Shrub or tall timber tree 2–27 m tall, sometimes with a fluted bole; young stems glabrous, or rarely puberulous, square or sometimes rounded.Leaf blades 5.5–15.5 × 2–8 cm, narrowly elliptic to elliptic, ovate or oblong-elliptic, acuminate to finely acuminate at apex, acute to obtuse or rounded at base, subcoriaceous to coriaceous, shiny on upper surface, glabrous; mid-rib whitish or red; lateral nerves in 4–8 main pairs; tertiary nerves apparent, sometimes raised above; domatia present as rather prominent blisters in the axils of the lateral nerves, with or without an eruption, glabrous, ciliate or pubescent; petioles 3–10 mm long; stipules 2–7 mm long, triangular at base, terminating in a usually decurrent lobe.Flowers 4-merous, borne in pedunculate, 20–100-flowered corymbs, 2–6 cm across; peduncles 3–20 mm long, glabrescent to pubescent; pedicels 2–9 mm long, pubescent; bracts and bracteoles inconspicuous.Calyx tube 0.75–1.25 mm long, glabrous to pubescent; limb 0.25–1.25 mm long, shorter or longer and often wider than the tube, truncate to repand, glabrous to pubescent outside and inside.Corolla whitish; tube 2–3 mm long, with deflexed hairs above mid-point inside and pubescent at throat; lobes 1.5–2.5 × 1.25–1.5 mm, oblong ovate, acute to obtuse.Anthers reflexed.Style up to 8 mm long; pollen presenter (0.5)0.75–1 mm long; disk pubescent.Fruit 5–8 × 8–14 mm, almost bispherical, black when mature.Pyrene 5–8 mm across, 3/4 circular to almost circular in outline with a groove extending from point of attachment on either side to centre of the plane face, cartilaginous, somewhat bullate.
