Tree 17-28 m high, 30-60 cm dbh, without buttresses. Bark scaly or both shallowly longitudinally and horizontally fissured (sometimes corky areas present), grey; inner bark cream, straw, or pink-brown with scattered dark fibres, paler towards cambium, without white latex. Branchlets glabrous. Leaves in whorls of 3; petiole 10-15 mm long, with many minute colleters densely packed together in the axils; blade thickly coriaceous when dried, obovate, 6.5-14 by (2.7-)3.2-7.5 cm, 1.8-2.8 times as long as wide, apex abruptly shortly acuminate (sometimes rounded), acumen up to 12 mm long with a blunt point, base acute, sometimes obtuse, or decurrent onto the petiole, glabrous above, sparsely hairy (at least on the midrib) beneath; 10-16 pairs of secondary veins (short interstitial veins sometimes present), forming an angle of 70-80° with the midrib, 5-12 mm from each other, hardly prominent beneath, submarginal vein inconspicuous; tertiary venation reticulate, mostly conspicuous on both sides. Inflorescence 4-5 cm long, many-flowered; pedicels rather stout, 1-3 mm long, puberulous or pubescent. Bracts and bracteoles sepal-or scale-like, ovate to narrowly ovate, triangular, or sometimes uncertainly shaped, 0.6-2 mm long, obtuse, acute, acuminate or irregularly lobed at the apex, ciliate, puberulous outside, glabrous inside. Flowers: Sepals connate at the base for c. 0.9 mm, ovate, 2.2-2.6 by 1.2-2 mm, apex obtuse or rounded, ciliate, glabrous or minutely hairy at the base outside, glabrous inside, erect. Corolla lobes dextrorse; white, 7-8 mm long in the mature bud and forming an ovoid head, 1.5-2 by 1.5-2 mm, glabrous or minutely hairy around the stamens outside; tube c. 6 mm long, c. 2 mm wide around the stamens; lobes ovate, 2-3 by 2-2.3 mm, 1-1.3 times as long as wide, pilose on the basal half inside, not ciliate, apex rounded, auriculate at the base on the right side. Stamens inserted at 3.1-3.8 mm from the base; anthers ovate, 1.1-1.3 by 0.4-0.6 mm, obtuse. Pistil glabrous, 4-4.1 mm long; ovary ovoid, c. 1.2 by 1.2 mm, of 2 carpels, with an annular disk-like thickening at the base c. 0.4 mm high; style 1.9-2.1 mm long; style head ovoid, 0.8-1 by 0.4-0.6 mm, with a cleft stigmoid apical part up to 0.35 mm high. Fruit a pair of follicles, 20-45 cm by 4-5 mm, glabrous. Seeds dark brown, elliptic, 7-9 by 3-3.3 mm, pubescent on both sides, one end acuminate with an acumen 1-2.6 mm long, the other end rounded (sometimes obtuse); longest cilia 5-7 mm long, becoming gradually shorter towards the side margins.
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