Shrub or tree to 5 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout or, on larger plants, rough, hard, fibrous, finely fissured and greyish brown on base of trunk; smooth bark bronze-brown to greyish white. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded in cross-section, scabrid until about node 6 or 7; juvenile leaves opposite, sessile, broadly ovate, amplexicaul, discolorous, the lamina thin with a wrinkled or 'bubbly' appearance and scabrid for ca 6 or 7 nodes, then becoming alternate, oblong to ovate or obcordate, 6–10.8 cm long, 4–8.3 cm wide, base truncate to rounded or tapering, concolorous, glossy, green, glabrous and rather thick with rounded or emarginate apices. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1.2–2.8 cm long; blade ovate to elliptical, obovate, orbicular or oblong, 5.5–12 cm long, 2.5–9 cm wide, base oblique or tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, thick, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, sparsely to moderately reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from margin, oil glands island or obscure. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0–0.2 cm long, buds in umbels of 1, 3 or rarely 7, sessile. Mature buds usually oblong to globular, 1–1.8 cm long, 0.8–1.4 cm wide, green, grossly warty, slightly angled longitudinally, scar absent, operculum rounded to flattened, stamens irregularly flexed or inflexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits, style long, stigma tapered, locules 4–6 each with 2 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit sessile, cup-shaped or hemispherical, 1.2–2 cm long, 1.6–3.2 cm wide, disc raised-annular or level, valves 4–6, strongly exserted. Seeds black or brown, 2–3.5 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal. Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, stellate-hairy until ca node 6 or 7 then smooth; leaves sessile, opposite, discolorous and stellate-hairy until node 6 then becoming alternate, glabrous and concolorous, cordate to ovate, 5–9 cm long, 4.5–6 cm wide, base amplexicaul at first becoming rounded at upper nodes, margin irregular to entire, apex pointed to rounded and apiculate, bright glossy green and glabrous.
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