Tree 10-25 m. Twigs ridged or ± angled, 4-6 mm in diameter, with dense chocolate, rusty, or grey-brown scale-like hairs 0.1 mm long, glabrescent; bark striate, not tending to crack or flake. Leaves chartaceous to thinly coriaceous, obovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, 25-55 by 7-15 cm, apex acute-acuminate, base broadly or narrowly rounded, subcordate, or (sub)attenuate; upper surface greenish brown, lower surface either glabrous or with sparse, minute greyish sessile stellate hairs (var. ashtonii) or with persistent densely interwoven greyish, pale brown, or cinnamon stellate hairs 0.1-0.2 mm long, silky to the touch (var. cinnamomea); dots absent; midrib slightly raised above; nerves 20-40 pairs, flat or ± depressed above; venation (very) fine, often ± trabeculate; petiole late glabrescent, 10-30 by 4-7 mm. Inflorescences: sessile, brachyblast simple, up to 10 by 5 mm; in male 4-10-flowered, in female 1-5-flowered; flowers seemingly glabrous, but with minute scale-like hairs less than 0.1 mm long (lens!); perianth 3-lobed, colour inside not known. Male flowers: pedicel distinct, bracteole apical, caducous; buds (broadly) obovoid, 5.5-8 mm long, cleft about 4/5, lobes hard-carnose, l-1.5(-2) mm thick; see further under the varieties. Female flower (Sinclair I.e.): pedicel 5-6 mm long, bracteole apical; buds oblong, 5-6 by 4 mm; ovary ovoid, 3 by 2 mm; style 1 mm long, stigma 2-lobed and each lobe again minutely 2-lobulate. Fruits 1-3 per infructescence, obovoid-oblong or long-ellipsoid, obtuse to acute at both ends, apex often up to 5 mm beaked, 5-8 by 3-4 cm, with dense chocolate hairs 0.2 mm long; dry pericarp 4 mm thick; fruiting pedicel stout, (5-) 10-30 mm long, bracteole scar median to apical, and in addition a distinct collar-like scar of the perianth at the base of the fruit.
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