Usually a rather large liana, up to 30 m by 15 cm, sometimes described as a shrubby creeper, an erect shrub (2 m high), or even a tall tree. Branches minutely tomentose when young, soon glabrous. Leaves 1-2-jugate, glabrous; petiolules 0.75 cm long. Leaflets oblong to lanceolate, 10-30 by 3.5-12 cm, stiff-coriaceous, sometimes minutely warty beneath; base broadly cuneate to rounded, sub-peltate; apex blunt to very shortly, blunt-acuminate; midrib very prominent beneath, nerves 8-14 pairs, gradually, usually slightly curved, rather inconspicuously joined close to the margin; veins transverse to the midrib, rather dense and conspicuous. Inflorescences up to 40 cm long, very broad, rather densely ferruginous-tomentose, the main branches also widely branched, flower-bearing axes densely spicate. Bracts scale-like and minute to filiform curved and up to 0.75 cm long. Sepals elliptic to lanceolate, blunt to acute, 3 by 1-1.5 mm, not keeled, densely minutely tomentose outside, inside minutely pubescent. Petals lanceo-late-spathulate, blunt, 5-6 mm long, glabrous, punctate. Stamens connate for 1 mm, the epipetalous ones probably not always fully fertile; filaments, mainly those of the episepalous stamens, scattered glandular-pubescent. Fruits flattened ellipsoid to obovoid, 4-6 by 2.5-3 cm, stipe 1-1 cm long, beak rather inconspicuous, inserted at or near the apex; pericarp coarsely obliquely wrinkled, glabrous outside, woody, c. 1 mm thick, inside sparsely shortly pubescent.
In open to dense, primary and secondary forests, at up to 300 m. Fl. (May-)Aug.-Nov., fr. March-April and Sept.