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Tree 3–15 m. high, repeatedly dichotomously branched. Bark pale grey-brown, inner bark white or brownish, with white latex. Branches lenticellate; branchlets glabrous or only sparsely pubescent when very young, terete, often sulcate when dry. Leaves shortly petiolate; petioles glabrous or sparsely pubescent, 3–5 mm. long, with colleters in the axils; lamina membranous when dry, narrowly ovate or narrowly elliptic, 3–6·5 times as long as wide, 3·5–10 x 1–2·7 cm., long-acuminate, cuneate or rounded at the base, glabrous or sometimes with minute scattered hairs above, pubescent at the base of the midrib or sometimes entirely glabrous beneath; secondary veins 8–15 at each side, fairly inconspicuous. Inflorescence solitary, terminal, often in the forks or axillary, erect 2–5 x 2–5 cm. Peduncle 3–5 mm., long, slender, pubescent as the branches. Bracts linear, about as long as the sepals, deciduous. Pedicel 3–5 mm. long, pubescent. Sepals pale green, with a membranous margin, persistent even beneath the fruit, narrowly ovate or elliptic, 2–2·4 times as long as wide, 5–6 x 2·2–2·5 mm., obtuse, sparsely pubescent outside, especially at the base, ciliate, inside with 5 large colleters alternating with them; colleters 1 x 0·8 mm., flat, entire or 3-lobed. Corolla creamy; tube almost cylindrical, slightly constricted at the insertion of the stamens, slightly shorter than the sepals, 4–5 x 1·7–2·8 mm., glabrous on both sides; lobes elliptic, 2–3·3 times as long as wide, 7–9 x 2·7–3·5 mm., obtuse, puberulous on both sides, spreading. Corona composed of 2 rings inserted at the mouth; outer of 5 basally united emarginate lobes, almost half as long as the anthers, each with triangular apices, and inside it a series of 10 shorter filiform appendages near the edges of the anthers. Stamens exserted, inserted 0·5–1 mm. below the mouth of the corolla; filaments very short, glabrous; anthers narrowly triangular, 4·5–5·5 x 1–1·4 mm., acuminate at the sterile apex, auriculate at the base, introrse, glabrous outside or at the apex with a few stiff hairs, inside on lower half of connective with a penicillate line of hairs just below the level where it is coherent with the clavuncula. Pistil glabrous, 6·8–7·7 mm., long; ovary broadly ovoid, 1·5–1·7 x 1·5–2 x 1·5–2 mm., composed of two free carpels; style often split at the base, 3·5–4·5 mm. long, cylindrical and at the apex with a globose head, c. 1 mm. diam. supporting the clavuncula; clavuncula composed of an entire recurved ring 0·4 x 1–1·2 mm. in size, followed by a small cone topped by a globe 0·3–0·6 mm. in diam.; stigma minute, 0·2 x 0·1 mm.; whole of clavuncula and stigma 1·4–1·5 x 1–1·2 mm. Ovules c. 100 in each cell. Follicles slender, cylindrical, 20–40 x 0·8–1 cm., with many pale lenticels, dehiscent throughout by an adaxial longitudinal slit and becoming flat and 15–17 mm. wide. Seed pale brown, 15–19 x 2 mm., longitudinally striate, with coma 3–5 cm. long.