Tree to 15 m; bole to 20 cm diam., fluted. Bark smooth to weakly and irregularly flaking, greenish grey or reddish, with conspicuous inflorescence bosses, sometimes bearing leafy shoots, arranged ± spirally from ground level to 5 m; wood ivory. Leafy twigs c. 12–15 mm diam. Leaves to 1.5 m long, pseudogemmulate, subglabrous, in terminal spirals; petiole 8–20 cm; rachis ± 3-ribbed. Leaflets in up to 15 pairs, to 42 by 10 cm, oblong, coriaceous, brilliant carmine when young and appearing in flushes of up to 11 pairs at once, very sparsely puberulous, bases subacute, asymmetric, apices acuminate, costae c. 12–14 on each side, tertiary venation conspicuous abaxially; petiolules c. 6 mm. Inflorescences to 10 cm long, not or once branched, sweetly-scented, borne on bosses which produce them over several seasons; rachis pubescent; pedicels 1–3 mm long, pubescent, minutely bracteolate. Calyx c. 4 mm long, cupular, rugose, pubescent, red; margin ± 4-or 5-lobed. Petals 5 or 6, 20–22 mm long, 4 mm wide at widest, 2.5 mm at narrowest, linear-oblong to spathulate, fleshy distally, pubescent without, imbricate to quincuncial. Staminal tube pubescent distally without, villous within, white, adnate to corolla at base, the margin shallowly 6–8-lobed, each lobe praemorse or irregularly 2-or 3-fid; anthers 8–10, 2 mm long, oblong, alocellate, yellow, sparsely hairy near connective, basifixed. Disk obscure. Ovary conical, 5-locular, appressed pubescent; style white, hairy in proximal 3/4 or throughout; style-head to 1.8 mm diam., very shortly cylindrical to subdiscoid. Capsule to 5 cm long, 3 cm diam., top-shaped, 5-merous, glabrous, reddish; pericarp with white latex. Seeds unknown.
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