Tree, 12-36 m by 35-50 cm ø. Branchlets initially with dense reddish brown adpressed stellate tomentum and woolly stellate hairs, glabrescent, sturdy with short internodes, greyish black, with sparse but large lenticels; terminal bud ovate, angular, acute, red-brownish, 3-10 by 3-4 mm, scales ovate, rounded to acute, 3-9 by 2-3 mm. Stipules (not known) leaving distinct scars. Leaves thick-coriaceous, 6-17 by 3-8 cm (index 1.9-3), widest mostly below the middle to rarely above; base rounded to subcordate to sometimes acute, occasionally asymmetrical, top rounded and sub-acuminate to ± abruptly ½-1 cm acuminate, tip sharp or blunt; surfaces discolorous, above greenish, glabrous, glossy, underneath brownish, dull, with a dense cover of more or less adpressed, stellate scales (waxy when older), often interspersed with shorter or longer stellate hairs, on the nerves only the latter; midrib broad and strong, dark coloured like the petiole; nerves 12-18 pairs at an angle of 45-60°, distinct underneath, parallel, ascending, arcuating and disappearing towards the margin; reticulation fine, obscure, scalariform, rather dense; petiole ½-1½ cm, to 3 mm ø, adaxially deeply sulcate. Male rachis 3-7 cm, 3-4 mm ø, bracts broadly ovate-acute, thick-coriaceous, 1-1½ mm, bracteoles lanceolate-acute, membranous, ¼ by 0.7 mm; ♂ flowers in clusters of 3, perianth deeply incised, lobes 6, ovate-acute, 1½-2 mm deep, densely hairy, stamens 12, filaments 2½-3 mm, anthers 0.2-0.25 mm long, pistillode 2-3 mm ø. Female rachis 2-3 cm, 3-4 mm ø, bracts broadly ovate-acute, thick-coriaceous, 1½ by 1½ mm; ♀ flowers solitary, perianth lobes 6, rounded or acute, 1 mm deep, densely hairy, staminodes 12, well-developed, exceeding the perianth, styles 3, conical, recurved, 2-2½ mm long. Young infructescence: rachis 5-10 cm, 4-5 mm ø; carrying 5-10 young ovoid-ellipsoid, subsessile cupules, adaxially flat and scaly, laterally with short reddish brown spines. Cupule (almost ripe) on stalk a few mm long and thick, excentrically compressed, obovoid, c. 3 by 4 cm, black in colour; wall 1-2 mm thick, glossy, glabrous, spiny except in the adaxial sector, spines in bundles arranged in 3-4 curving bands, unbranched, rather slender, ± straight or sometimes reflexed, 8-10 mm, glabrous. Fruit solitary, reniform or ovoid, base rounded, top acute, 2-2½ cm; wall woody, 2-3 mm thick, adnate to the cupule except the top, rugose, glabrous; cotyledons flat-convex.
Home