Tree to 40 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.Bark rough throughout extending to branches ca 5 cm diameter, stringy, brownish grey.Branchlets not glaucous; lacking oil glands in the pith.Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stems round in cross-section, stellate hairy; juvenile leaves petiolate, opposite for few nodes soon becoming alternate, ovate, no dimension data available, bases tapering or becoming oblique, margin weakly indented, apex pointed, discolorous, darker green on upper side.Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.8–1.5 cm long; blade lanceolate or falcate, 9–16 cm long, 1.8–4.8 cm wide, base tapering or oblique, margin weakly indented due to lenticel-like structures, apex pointed, lamina thin-textured, concolorous, glossy green, side-veins acute, sparsely reticulate, intramarginal vein present, oil glands irregular, island.Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.7–1.5 cm long, angular-terete or only slightly flattened, buds 7 to ?24 per umbel, pedicellate (pedicels angular 0.1–0.4 cm long). Mature buds buds fusiform, 0.5–0.7 cm long, 0.2–0.3 cm wide, yellowish, smooth, scar absent, operculum conical to beaked (as long as to longer than hypanthium), stamens irregularly flexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits, style long, stigma blunt, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 2 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long), hemispherical to truncate-globose, 0.35–0.5 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, disc usually level, valves 3 or 4, very strongly exserted.Seeds dark brown to blackish, 1–2 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): not grown (data from Bell & Nicolle (ibid.)); cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, densely hairy with stellate hairs; leaves opposite for 1 to 3 pairs then alternate, petiolate, ovate, 5–8.5 cm long, 2–4 cm wide, more or less undulate, base usually oblique, margin weakly indented, apex elongate acute, discolorous, green, densely hairy with stellate hairs.
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