Shrub to 2 m tall and to 2 m in diam. Branchlets red-brown or greyish, minutely pubescent. Leaves simple or forked; petiole not distinct; lamina terete, grooved or flat, to c. 18 cm long overall, with an undivided part to 9.5 cm long, mucronate to pungent-pointed, scabrous (sometimes minutely so), minutely pubescent to sericeous, later glabrescent. Inflorescence globose to ovoid, terminal or rarely axillary, sessile, solitary, to c. 35 mm diam., surrounded by leaves; involucral bracts broad, ovate, imbricate, tomentose outside, persistent and becoming ±hard after flowering; cone scales narrower, densely villous outside, usually glabrous towards apex. Flowers to c. 18 mm long, pink or red; perianth tube glabrous or pubescent, with a tuft of hairs on apex of each tepal. Pollen presenter to c. 5 mm long; basal part papillose, 4-angled, swollen at base, constricted near mid-point then dilated into globose part; apical part glabrous, swollen near its base then tapering slightly to stigmatic cup. Cones ±globose, to c. 16 mm diam. Nuts ovoid, beaked, to c. 3 mm long, villous.
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