Shrub or tree up to 15 m high; dioecious; trunk slender to 2 dm thick; twigs pale, smooth, terete, with inconspicuous lenticels, not spinescent. Leaves chartace-ous; petioles glabrate, ca 4-9 mm long; stipules lanceolate, inconspicuous, 1 mm long or less; blades elliptic to obovate, mostly 5-20 cm long, 2-7 cm broad, glabrous except for tufts of straight simple hairs in the axils of main veins beneath (rarely entirely glabrous), the major veins ca 5-8 on a side, straight, distinctly raised beneath, the veinlets forming a conspicuous reticulum beneath, the base tapering, narrowly-rounded to subcordate, the margins entire, the apex abruptly cuspidate-acuminate (acumen mostly 1-1.5 cm long). Inflorescences glomerulate, several to many flowers of each sex in dense axillary clusters. Staminate flowers with slender pubescent pedicels mostly 4-7 mm long; calyx-lobes 5, elliptic, pointed, ca 2-2.3 mm long, pubescent outside!; disc fleshy, ca 1-1.3 mm in diam; stamens mostly 13-16, in 2 or more whorls (often 8 or 9 at base, 5 or 6 at the top), the filaments connate into a column ca 0.5-1 mm high, terminated by a pistillode, the filament tips slender, ca 1-1.5 mm long, the anthers blunt, ca 0.4 mm long. Pistillate flowers with glabrate pedicels-becoming 2-7 cm long in fruit; calyx-lobes 6, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, blunt or acute, 3-6.5 mm long, pubescent; disc as in 6'; ovary densely pubescent, the styles free, or shortly connate basally, spreading, deeply fimbriate-lacerate, ca (1.2-)1.5-3.5 mm long. Capsules trigonous, deeply emarginate-depressed at the top (cocci connate only in lower 1/2 or 2/3), 7-11 mm in diam, 5.8-7.5 mm high, pubescent; columella slender, more or less purplish-tinged, 3-pronged at tip, 3.5-4 mm long; seeds subspheroidal or sometimes distinctly oblate, 3.1-4.1 mm long, 3.4-4 mm in diam, smooth, grayish or waxy-whitenecia, with distinct raphe.
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