Erect, slender tree, 10-35 m, buttressed up to 1 m; bark whitish, peeling; branches ferrugineous-tomentose, glabrescent when old. Leaves oblong to elliptic, entire, abruptly (0.5-1.7 cm) constricted at the apex, cuneate at the base, subcoriaceous, glabrous above, laxly pilose beneath, 11-17 by 4-8 cm; nerves 5-7 pairs; petiole stout, 3-6 cm, thickened at the apex. Racemes solitary, in the upper leaf-axils of the branchlets (these defoliate or beset with young, brownish-tomentose leaflets), 3-18 cm long. Flowers in spaced fascicles. Bracts and pedicels densely rusty-tomentose. Calyx-lobes ½ mm, triangular-subulate. Petals naviculate, glabrous, caducous, 4 by 1.5-2 mm, pale-green, with a linear, inside densely pilose scale 2.5 by 1 mm. ♂ Flowers: filaments pilose at apex and base only, 3 mm; anthers subcordate. Rudiment of ovary subulate. ♀ Flowers: staminodes glabrous, anthers reduced in size. Ovary oblong-ovoid, densely rusty-tomentose (white or greenish-white when fresh). Styles 2(-3), very short, tomentose, each with a blackish, c. 1 mm long stigma. Fruit irregularly globular-trigonous when containing 3 seeds, somewhat flattened when containing 2 seeds, asymmetrically applanate with 1 seed only, rusty-pilose. Seeds nearly reniform, 1.2 by 0.8-0.9 cm; testa striate; aril fleshy, 2-3 mm.
Primary dryland forest, probably scattered and rather rare, on sandy soil, 25-150 m. Fl. May-Nov., fr. July-March.
Uses. Sapwood red, heart-wood whitish, hard, occasionally used.
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