Tree, or sometimes shrub, ca 3-8 m high; monoecious or dioecious; trunk ca 3-5 cm diam; stems nearly glabrous to densely tomentose. Leaves membranous; petioles glabrous to densely tomentose (2-)4-20 cm long; stipules broadly lanceo-late to linear-lanceolate, acuminate, flat, sparsely to densely pubescent, 5-13 mm long; blades ovate to ovate-lanceolate, ca 10-20 cm long, 5-15 cm broad, glabrate to tomentose on both surfaces, 5-7-nerved at base, mostly with 6-10 veins on each side, the base barely to distinctly cordate, the margins crenate-serrate with ca 25-60 teeth on a side, the apex abruptly acuminate. Inflorescences axillary, spicate, normally unisexual; female spikes becoming 15-30 cm long, loosely flowered, with ca 15-65 bracts, sometimes distinctly pedunculate; male spikes ca 6-20(-40) cm long, densely flowered, 3-5 mm thick, sessile or short-pedunculate. Pistillate flowers solitary; bracts broader than long, ? reniform, 2.5-3.1 mm long, 4.4-5 mm broad, increasing and foliaceous in fruit to 5-8 mm long, with ca 11-20 shallow acute or acuminate lobes mostly 1.5-2.2 mm long, ? strigose-hirsute especially along the veins; calyx-lobes obscure; ovary densely hispid-tomentose, the styles free, strigose-hispid on the back, pinnatifid along their entire length into, stoutish segments (the longer subequal to the style), mostly 3-4 mm long. Capsules 3.3-3.7 mm in diam, hispid, not glandular; seeds ellipsoidal, narrowed at one end, brownish-gray, smooth (minutely foveolate), ca 1.9-2 mm long, the caruncle an ill-defined whitish streak up to ca 1.5 mm long.
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