Tree 10–30 m high, 30–35 cm d.b.h.; bark white, distinctive layered paperbark with horizontal banding. Cotyledons ovate, apex acute with prominent mucro, petiolate. Juvenile stages with leaves variably and prominently angular-toothed. Adult leaves: lamina elliptic, 90–110 mm long, 30–40 mm wide, glossy green, margin entire, with slight drip tip; petiole 15–25 mm long, twisting. Inflorescences are corymbs of aromatic, small, white bisexual flowers; rachis to 20 mm long; peduncles to 10 mm long; pedicels almost square, to 10 mm long, all rigid, stout. Sepals 5 or 6 unequal lobes, 1.5–2.5 mm long, spreading from the base. Petals slightly cohering towards the middle but then free spreading, linear to slightly spathulate, 7–9 mm long, 1–2 mm wide, white. Stamens free; filaments tapering from wide base, longer than anthers, white; anthers yellow, dehiscing yellow pollen. Pistil: ovary ridged, bilocular, sometimes trilocular, green, dense white-hairy towards base; gynophore prominently ridged; style stout, elongated, to 2 mm long, ending in a slightly knobby stigma. Fruit a loculicidally dehiscent capsule, unequally (tri-) bi-locular, 10–16 mm long, 15–20 mm diam., globose to tetragonal, red-orange; valves 2–3 mm thick; mesocarp pithy/fibrous, resinous; stalk stout, 2–3 mm long. Seeds usually 2, hemispherical, 6–7 mm long, forming an ovate ball in one, rarely both loculi, black.
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