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Branched shrub or small, often crooked or stunted tree, 2-5 m by 10-20 cm, with sparse foliage; bark rough, tuberculate, flaky in rectangular pieces. Leaves sessile or nearly so, spiral or in whorls, cuneate-oblong, rounded-obtuse or sometimes retuse at the mucronate apex, tapering gradually towards the base, subcoriaceous, margin irregularly coarsely spiny-toothed to subentire, undulate and often slightly recurved, upper surface glabrous, undersurface white or slightly pale brownish, arachnoid-tomentose, except on the nerves, 10-25 by (2-)2.5-8 cm, nerves straight, numerous, at about right angles to the midrib, arched. Spikes oblong or cylindrical, covered by a thick, rusty, detersile wool when young, 6-10 cm long, 1-1½ cm thick in anthesis. Bracts and bracteoles tomentose. Perianth slender, silky, greenish-or creamish-yellow when open, 2½ cm. Style yellow, 3-4 cm. Fruit-cone oblong, c. 7-10 by 1½-2 cm, tomentose.
A small tree. In the forest it is often a straggling miss-shapen tree. It grows to 8 m tall and spreads to 4 m wide. The stem is erect. The bark is dark grey and rough. It has a widely branching crown. The leaves are coarsely toothed along the edge, blue green on top and whitish underneath. They are wedge shaped and 25 cm long by 3-6 cm wide. The flowers are yellow when young then turn brown, dry and hard. Flower spikes can be 15-20 cm long. The flowers are in cylindrical spikes. Seeds are black and winged. These are in large woody fruiting cones. The seed are expelled from the cone.
