A large shrub or a tree, the bark almost smooth, pale brownish; branchlets and leaf rachises usually densely hirsute with long stiff spreading hairs, sometimes merely hirtellous or in age glabrate; leaves almost all opposite, those of a pair often unequal, or one of the leaves sometimes suppressed; petiole 1-2 (-3) cm. long; leaflets mostly 10-20, highly variable, often almost all opposite, oblong to narrowly lance-oblong, mostly 10-18 cm. long and 1.5-4 cm. wide, the lowest leaflets generally much reduced, acute to long-acuminate or rarely obtuse, sessile or nearly so, obtuse to truncate at the base and usually very oblique, conspicuously appressed-serrate or almost entire, membranaceous or thicker, glabrous or nearly so along the costa, usually glaucous or glaucescent beneath, usually hirtellous or hirsute along the nerves but sometimes glabrate, inconspicuously lepidote; flower spikes stout, 3-5 cm. long, short-pedunculate, the rachis densely hirtellous and glandular; staminate flowers 4 mm. broad, the perianth glandular; pistillate flowers green, 5-6 mm. long; ovary sparsely hirtellous and densely covered with golden glands; stigmas red; fruiting spikes 12-18 cm. long or more, each bearing numerous oval or obovoid fruits, about 2.5 cm. long and 2 cm. thick, densely velutinous-hirsute and covered with sessile glands; nut not ridged, broadly rounded at base and apex, the wall ("endocarp") less than 1 mm. thick.
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