Tree to 20 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough to the smallest branches, tessellated or shortly fibrous, grey and grey-brown.Branchlets smooth (glabrous); lack oil duct in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems rounded, smooth, if setae present then only on lowest internodes; juvenile leaves shortly petiolate (petioles Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–1.9 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate, 7.7–15(17.5) cm long, 0.8–1.6(2) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, discolorous, glossy, green, side-veins at greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation very dense, intramarginal vein present and close to margin, visible at least on the underside, oil glands island, one per areole, or obscure.Inflorescence terminal compound, peduncles 0.5–1.8 cm long, buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.3–0.6 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to narrowly pyriform, 0.7–0.9 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, scurfy (whitish scaly surface due to fragmenting cuticle), scar absent (both opercula shed together at flowering), operculum shallowly rounded, stamens inflexed, all fertile, anthers oblong, dorsifixed, versatile, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt and long-papillose, locules 4, the placentae each with ovule not arranged in distinct rows. Flowers not seen.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.6 cm long), elongated barrel-shaped tapering distally, sometimes slightly consticted below the rim, 1.1–2 cm long, 0.7–1.2 cm wide, always longer than wide (1.4–1.9 times as long as wide), surface ± smooth, disc descending vertically, valves 4, enclosed.Seeds brown, 6–8 mm long, ellipsoidal with terminal wing, hilum subterminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons large, reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, setose with short bristle-glands for up to ca 4 nodes then smooth; leaves always petiolate, opposite for ca 8 nodes then sub-opposite, narrowly elliptical or narrowly lanceolate, 7.5–9 cm long, 1.2–1.8 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, dull or slightly glossy, green, only sparsely setose on lower 4 pairs of leaves, then smooth.
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