Evergreen tree up to 27 m. tall; young branches softly and ferruginously stellate-tomentose, soon glabrescent; bark ashy-grey. Leaf-lamina up to 22 × 9·5 cm., coriaceous or subcoriaceous, obovate-elliptic to obovate, apex abruptly acuminate, margin entire or sinuate, base broadly cuneate or narrowly rounded, glabrous on both surfaces except when very young, midrib prominent on both surfaces, nerves in 12–15 pairs, slightly prominent above, very prominent beneath, venation reticulate, prominent beneath; petiole up to 6 cm. long, softly tomentellous but soon glabrescent, with a persistently puberulous pulvinus; stipules up to 7 mm. long, caducous, linear-lanceolate, ferruginously tomentose. Flowers in few- to many-flowered fascicles on the 1–3-year-old wood. Male flowers ferruginously tomentose; pedicels c. 1 cm. long, not articulated; calyx campanulaterotate, deeply 5–6-lobed, densely light-brown-pubescent or -tomentose outside; tube glabrous within, 1·5 mm. long; lobes 3·5–6 × 2·5–3 mm., narrowly ovate, apex acute, with 3 longitudinal nerves, densely stellate-pubescent in the upper half within, with minute globose papillae below; androphore c. 3 mm. long, densely stellate-pubescent to near the apex, crowned by a uniseriate ring of 5–6 anthers; vestigial carpels 4, immersed in the top. Female flowers as in the male but with 4 stellate-tomentose, 2-ovulate carpels; style 1 mm. long, stellate-tomentose; stigmas 1 × 0·75 mm., patent, papillose; anthers 6–7, sessile, surrounding the base of the carpels. Follicles 1–2, 1·3–1·4 × 1·3–1·7 cm., sessile or subsessile, fubglobose, apex rounded or bluntly mucronate, slightly narrowed at the base, serruginously stellate-tomentose, 1–2-seeded. Seeds ellipsoid, c. 1·2 × 0·9 cm.; testa brown, rugulose.