Trees to 15 m tall; trunk to 25 cm d.b.h., sulcate at least when young, the bark with shallow, horizontal and vertical fissures, flaking off to expose the reddish inner bark, the wood cream colored, with a sweet odor; younger stems densely ferruginous-hirsute, obscurely 5-ribbed. Leaves pinnately 3-7(-9)-foliolate; rachis conspicuously hirsute; leaflets obovate-oblong, mostly rounded at the apex, oc-casionally obtuse or acute, often inequilateral at the base, the larger leaflets 7-22 (-33) cm long, 3.5-10 cm wide, glabrous above except densely pubescent on the midrib, conspicuously hirsute beneath, especially on the veins, all the veins promi-nent, the major lateral veins impressed above, the margin entire to usually den-ticulate (serrate on juvenile plants); simple leaves on juvenile plants to 45 cm long and 15 cm wide. Panicles stout and densely floriferous from the upper axils, about equalling the leaves, densely hirsute. Flowers white; sepals densely pubes-cent, 2.8-3.3 mm long, equalling the corolla, regular, not imbricate at anthesis; petals obovate, clawed, pubescent along the margin, the scale fused along the margin at the base; disc orange, prominent, nearly glabrous; stamens with the filaments villous in the lower 3/4; staminate flowers opening before the bisexual flowers and mostly deciduous when the bisexual flowers are open, the stamens to 3.5 mm long, exserted, the anthers ca. 1 mm long, attached to the filament at the middle, the thecae divergent in the lower half, the ovary narrowly ovoid, strongly 3-angulate, with a short style and 3 more or less erect stigmas, the stigma and style less than 2 mm long, the ovary and style densely pubescent with stiff, straight trichomes, these usually exceeding the stigmas; bisexual flowers with the stamens 2-2.5 mm long, included, the anthers smaller than in the staminate flow-ers otherwise similar, the ovary ovoid, ca. 2 mm high, the style about equalling the ovary, the stigmas 3, recurved, exceeding the pubescence. Capsules in dense clusters, burnt orange to indian red, sharply 3-sided, 1.5-2 cm broad, nearly as long as broad, densely pubescent without, less so within, dehiscing broadly along the angles; seeds 3, obovoid, ca. 1 cm long, black, shiny, partly enveloped by a yellow to greenish aril.
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