Leptocaul shrub to small tree 17 m tall; bole to 20 cm diam. Bark dark brown to reddish, smooth; inner bark, red; wood white. Leafy twigs c 3 mm diam., puberulous, blackish in sicco. Leaves to 38 cm long and 5-jugate, pseudogemmulate; petiole 2–6 cm. Leaflets to 25 by 10 cm, but usually much smaller, oblanceolate or oblong-lanceolate to elliptic-ovate, glabrous, shiny adaxially, paler, glabrescent, reticulate, puberulous on veins abaxially, bases cuneate, apices shortly acuminate, costae 5–8 on each side, arcuate and slightly prominent abaxially; petiolules 2–4 mm. Racemes 2–13 cm, supraaxillary, puberulous, 1–6-flowered. Flowers c 2 cm long, waxy and heavily scented; pedicel 6–12 mm, puberulous. Calyx c 6 mm long, 6 mm diam., tubular, fleshy, tomentose without, margin truncate to obscurely 5-lobed, enveloping corolla in bud, accrescent in fruit. Petals (4) 5 or 6, white, waxy, in 2 ranks, 3 outer c. 18 by 6 mm, spathulate-elliptic, minutely tomentose without, glabrous within, (1) 2 or 3 inner c. 17 by 3–5 mm, narrowly spathulate-elliptic, glabrous save a longitudinal median band of minute tomentum in those flowers where inner rank is partly exposed through gaps between outer petals, all blunt and weakly overlapping at apices. Staminal tube glabrous, save sparse pubescence below anthers within, margin obscurely lobed; anthers (4–)8– 10, c. 1.5 mm long, narrowly elliptic to linear, weakly locellate, glabrous, basifixed, included. Disk small, flat, tomentose. Ovary and style pubescent except for glabrous band below discoid to shortly cylindrical stylehead. Capsule at least 1 cm diam., spherical, when ripe ellipsoid, rostrate, tomentose and with persistent, usually accrescent calyx when young. Seeds unknown.
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