Subshrubs to 2 m tall, the stems glabrous, drying minutely rugulose. Leaves elliptic oblong to 40 cm long, to 20 cm wide when dry, the costa prominulous and canaliculate above, subprominent beneath, distinctly corky alate toward the base, the lateral veins 15-25, ca. 3 cm apart, arcuate, scarcely prominulous above, conspicuously prominulous beneath, the intermediate veins more divergent, soon evanescent, the veinlets spreading, irregularly pinnatiform with patches of simple appressed hairs on the costa and veins beneath, the hairs few, stellate, stiffly chartaceous, discolorous when dry; petioles to 13 cm long, ca. 3 mm wide in the middle, inconspicuously swollen below the base of the blade, the vescicles 0.6-10 cm long, ca. 1 cm wide when dry. Inflorescences often 3 per axil, the peduncles reflexed, 1-1.5 cm long, ca. 0.13 cm wide, with minute patches of crystalline hairs and raphides, the hairs few, to 0.7 mm long, rarely stellate. Flowers (juvenile fruit) subsessile; hypanthium short, moderately villose, the raphides thick, white; calycine cup somewhat turgid, villose, the lobes 4, thickly carnose to 4.5 mm long, to 3.5 cm wide, ciliate, the veins few, ascending, the wall of the hypanthium thick. Fruits (immature) rhomboid, ca. 6 mm in diam.; seeds thickly reticulate.