Tree to 15 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark rough, stringy or fibrous, loose, prickly, not furrowed, grey or grey-brown. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): poorly known; juvenile stem rounded in cross-section; juvenile leaves sessile and opposite for some nodes (?until at least 50 cm tall), ovate, to 6.5–11 cm long, 2–5 cm wide, base rounded, green, discolorous. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 7–18 cm long, 1.2–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous or slightly discolorous, glossy, green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, moderately to densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and remote from margin, oil glands island or obscure. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.5–1.8 cm long, buds 7 to ?15, pedicels 0.3–0.7 cm long. Mature buds ovoid (0.6–0.7 cm long, 0.3–0.5 cm wide), green to yellow, scar absent, operculum conical to beaked, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits, style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 2 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit on pedicels 0.3–0.7 cm long, cup-shaped to hemispherical, 0.7–0.9 cm long, 0.8–0.9 cm wide, disc level, valves 3 or 4, near rim level or enclosed. Seeds brown, 1–2 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface usually smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): seedlings incompletely known. Cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section; leaves sessile, opposite for ca 10 nodes, lanceolate with base amplexicaul, to ca 8 cm long, ca 3 cm wide, margin entire, discolorous, glossy, green.
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