Tree to 20 m high; fluted bole to 60 cm diam.; bark finely cracked, grey; shoots with soft rust-red pubescence. Leaves in spirals, fist-shaped in bud, 35–100 cm long, imparipinnate, to 9-jugate; petiole 3–10 cm long; leaflets narrowly oblong-ovate, 5–20 cm long, 1.5–4 cm wide, asymmetric at base, acuminate at apex, rusty-pubescent abaxially. Thyrses to 30 cm long, pubescent; flowers sessile, extremely fragrant; bracteoles c. 1.5 mm long. Sepals 5, free, 1.5 mm long, densely rusty-hairy. Petals 5, linear-lanceolate, 12–14 mm long, creamy white, adnate to staminal tube in proximal ⅓, adpressed-hairy outside. Staminal tube hairy on both sides; margin with 10 lobes; anthers 10. Disc c. 2.5 mm long. Ovary 5-locular; locules 2-ovulate. Capsule flattened-globose, c. 2.5 cm diam., orange, densely tomentose with golden irritant hairs. Seeds up to 10, planoconvex, c. 8 mm long, orange-red.
Usually an understorey tree, though sometimes growing into the canopy, found in subtropical, dry and tropical forests, preferring fertile volcanic soils but also on poorer soils; ascending to 1,100 metres in tropical areas.
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Subtropical and dry rainforest to 1250 m alt.
The timber, Rusty Mahogany or Bastard Cedar Pencil-Wood, is still of value for cabinetwork and was formerly used in joinery.
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