A forest tree up to 20 m high with a straight trunk up to 45 cm in diameter.Bark pale grey, ± smooth or rough.Heartwood dark.Branches spiny.Twigs brown to dark purplish-brown, sparingly lenticellate.Young shoots and petioles evenly to sparingly puberulous, later glabrescent, or else quite glabrous.Petioles 2–8 mm long.Stipules 3–8 mm long, narrowly lanceolate, acutely acuminate, evenly to sparingly pubescent, soon falling.Leaf blades 2–17 × 1–10 cm, elliptic to oblanceolate, acutely acuminate, rounded-cuneate to subtruncate at the base, membranous, sparingly pubescent along the midrib and otherwise glabrous or else completely glabrous above, evenly to sparingly pubescent along the midrib and veins and sometimes glabrescent beneath, dark green and shiny above, mid-green and dull beneath, almost blackening above in drying; lateral nerves in 10–22 pairs, camptodromous, not or slightly prominent above, somewhat so beneath, tertiary nerves subparallel.Male flowers: pedicels c. 1 mm long, pubescent; sepals c. 2 × 1 mm, triangular-ovate, acute, pubescent without at the base, otherwise glabrous, often pinkish or purplish-tinged; petals 0.75 × 0.75 mm, spathulate, somewhat erose at the apex; disk 1.5 mm in diameter, annular, verruculose, ± entire; staminal column 1 mm high; anthers 0.75 mm long; pistillode 1 mm tall, ampulliform, bifid at the apex.Female flowers subsessile or very shortly pedicellate; sepals ± as in the male; petals 0.5 × 0.5 mm, spathulate, subentire; outer disk as in the male; inner disk 3-lobed, lobes c. 1 × 1 mm, ± triangular, toothed at apex; ovary 1 × 0.75 mm, ovoid, 2-celled, styles 2, c. 1 mm long, ± free, bifid, stigmas ± smooth.Fruit 6–8 × 5–6(7) mm when dried, obovoid-ellipsoid, 1-locular by abortion, green at first, blackish-brown when ripe.Seed 4 mm long, smooth, shiny, chestnut-brown.