Tree, 10-30 m by 15-30 cm ø; buttresses up to 1 m tall; bark smooth, lenticellate, greyish brown. Branchlets initially with dense, yellowish brown stellate tomentum; glabrescent; internodes sometimes short, slender, dark purplish brown-grey, with minute lenticels; terminal bud ovoid-globose or ellipsoid, 3-5 by 2-3 cm, scales ovate, elliptic, acute, 3-4 by 2 mm. Stipules ovate, triangular, blunt, 5-10 by 3-5 mm, rather long persistent. Leaves thin-coriaceous, 6-12 by 2-6 cm (index 1.8-2.6), widest mostly below to rarely above the middle; base rounded to subcordate, usually asymmetrical, top rounded and subacuminate to 1 cm acuminate with blunt to acute tip; surfaces green-brownish, above glabrous, rather glossy, beneath dull, nerves rather densely set with bunchlike stellate hairs, the branches of the latter straight to somewhat curly, scales non; midrib and nerves weakly prominent on both surfaces; nerves 8-10 pairs at an angle of 50-60°, subparallel, ascending, arcuating and disappearing near the margin; reticulation fine, distinct on both surfaces, more or less irregular; petiole ½-1 cm, terete or adaxially flat. Female rachis 3-7 cm, 1 mm ø, bracts and bracteoles ovate-acute, 0.6-1 by 1-1½ mm; ♀ flowers solitary, perianth deeply incised, lobes 6, ovate-acute, 0.6 mm long, densely hairy on both sides, staminodes 12, rudimentary, styles 3, conical, 1.2-1.5 mm, recurved. Cupule (not yet ripe) c. 5 mm stalked, obovoid-ellipsoid, 2-2½ by 1½ cm, tapering towards the base, dark-coloured; wall c. 1 mm thick, sparsely fulvous-puberulent, spiny except the adaxial sector and abaxial sutures; spines laxly set in bundles arranged in more or less parallel curving lines, 5-8 mm long, sparsely branched near the base or simple, rather slender, mostly straight, sometimes reflexed, subglabrous. Unripe fruit solitary, ellipsoid, 1½ by 1 cm, wall 1 mm thick, completely adnate to the cupule, rugose and glabrous; cotyledons flat-convex.
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