Semi–deciduous shrub or tree (1) 2–6(10) m. tall. Bark dark grey or black, rough, deeply fissured. Branchlets reddish with spreading pilose, setulose and glandular hairs. Leaves chartaceous, drying greenish–black or reddish brown; lamina 2·9 x 1·6–11 x 6·8 cm., obovate or obovate–elliptic; apex obtuse, acute or shortly acuminate, base rounded to subcordate, margin ciliate or not; lower surface almost glabrous to densely pubescent on the lamina and puberulous to tomentellous or pilose–tomentose on the nerves; lateral nerves in 5–6 pairs, tertiary nerves and veins forming a reficulum darker than the lamina on lower surface. Male flowers tetramerous, usually in 3–7–flowered cymes in axils of reduced leaves and proximal true leaves towards base of current year’s growth, rarely solitary; peduncle up to 2·5 cm. long; pedicels up to 1·5 cm. long, puberulous; bracts up to 0·5 x 0·3 cm., opposite, ovate–lanceolate. Calyx 0·3–0·4 cm. long, valvate–reduplicate, deeply lobed; lobes deltate or ovate–acuminate, pallid–tomentellous on both sides. Corolla 0·4–0·6 cm. long, lobed almost to the base; lobes rounded to acute, minutely setulose, reflexed at apex. Disk undulate, glabrous. Stamens 8, 0·3 cm. long; filaments very short, hairy distally; anthers 0·25 cm. long, lanceolate, densely sericeous–pubescent. Pistillode conoidal, minutely tomentellous to almost glabrous, locules 8, uniovulate; stylodes 4, glabrous. Female flowers similar to male. Staminodes 8, 0·15–0·2 cm. long; antherode densely hairy. Ovary 0·15–0·2 cm. long, conoidal, tomentellous to almost glabrous; locules 8; styles united only at base, glabrous. Fruit yellowish, 1·5–2·5 cm. in diameter, globose, setulose–puberulous. Seeds 8 or fewer, 1·1 cm. long, dull brown; testa smooth or slightly reticulate; endosperm shallowly ruminate. Fruiting calyx strongly accrescent, concealing the fruit, lobes up to 4 x 2·5 cm., broadly ovate, membranous with prominent venation, puberulous.