Tree, 5-24 m by 15-50 cm ø; bark grey, smooth. Branchlets initially with some tomentum, soon glabrescent, slender, smooth or finely fissured, rather glossy dark purplish brown, sparsely lenti-cellate; terminal bud ovoid-globose 3-5 by 3 mm, scales ovate-acute, 3 by 2 mm. Stipules triangular, 5-6 by 2 mm, rarely persistent. Leaves 10-17 by 3½-5½ cm (index 2.3-3.4), widest about the middle; base tapering to rarely rounded and abruptly acute, apex bluntly acute to ½-1 cm acuminate with sharp tip; surfaces green to brownish, above more or less glossy, glabrous, beneath duller and mostly greyish with wax in which ad-pressed stellate scales are mostly discernible (magnification 60!) with very sparse longer hairs mostly only on the nerves; midrib strongly prominent beneath, slightly so above; nerves 11-14 pairs at an angle of 60-70°, parallel, ascending, arcuating towards the margin, slightly prominent beneath, flattish above; reticulation fine, dense, scalariform; petiole 1-2½ cm, adaxially flat. Male rachis 10-15 cm, 1-2 mm ø, bracts ovate-acute, 1½ by 1 mm, bracteoles 1 by 0.7 mm; ♂ flowers in clusters of 3; perianth lobes 4-6, connate at the base only, 1-1½ by 0.7-1 mm, ovate-acute, densely hairy, stamens 10-12, filaments 1½-2½ mm, anthers 0.2-0.25 mm, pistillode 1½ mm ø. Female rachis 5-10 cm, bracts ovate-acute, 1 by 1 mm; ♀ flowers solitary, perianth deeply 6-lobed, the lobes 1 by 0.7 mm, densely hairy; staminodes 12, rudimentary, styles 3, recurved, conical, 1-2 mm long. Young infructescence c. 10 cm long, carrying numerous solitary cupules. Young cupule ovoid, bearing short, simple spines on the rounded lateral sides, and scales on the median sides. Ripe cupule ½ cm stalked, obovoid-ellipsoid, 4-4½ by 3-3½ cm; wall 2-4 mm thick, inside brown tomentose, outside with some brownish puberulence, otherwise glabrous, spines sparsely to densely set sparsely puberulous, sturdy and blackish to slender and rather soft and brownish, in bundles, often branched in the basal part with the branches reflexed, 10-23 mm long in all; dehiscence none or irregular. Fruit solitary, ovoid, adaxially flat or depressed, 3-3½ by 2-3 cm, wall 2-3 mm thick, woody, ad-nate to the cupule; cotyledons flat-convex.
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