Trees 8-10 m tall. First-year branchlets blackish brown when dry. Petiole 6-10 mm; leaf blade ovate, broadly elliptic, narrowly elliptic, or lanceolate, 6-9 × 2-3.5 cm, thickly papery, brittle when dry, puberulent along midvein and abaxially reddish brown and with a tight layer of scalelike trichomes when young, brownish gray with age, base broadly cuneate to acute and symmetric, margin somewhat crenate to dentate or entire, apex acuminate, caudate, or obtuse; midvein adaxially flat to slightly impressed but usually slightly raised from base to middle; secondary veins 10-14 on each side of midvein. Infructescences 5-10 cm; rachis 2-4 mm thick. Cupule broadly obovoid, ca. 3 cm in diam., dark grayish brown when mature and dry, wall ca. 1 mm thick and exterior ± visible through bracts; bracts spinelike, 4-7 mm, free and evenly scattered or connate at base into short rings, basally gray puberulent, apically yellowish brown and glabrous. Nut broadly conical, 1-1.8 cm in diam., puberulent; scar basal, 0.8-1.4 cm in diam. Fr. Oct-Nov.
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