Trees 5-9 m tall. Branchlets of current year sulcate; branchlets of last-year growth dark gray to blackish when dry, sparsely lenticellate; lenticels tawny. Petiole 1.5-2 cm, white farinose when dry; leaf blade lanceolate to oblong, 5.5-13 × 2-6 cm, often asymmetric, thickly leathery, abaxially with adherent, waxy scalelike trichomes, adaxially white farinose when dry, base cuneate and decurrent on petiole, margin entire, apex narrowly acuminate and falcate; secondary veins 6-9 on each side of midvein, abruptly curving apically near margin but not fusing; tertiary veins abaxially very slender, evident to inconspicuous. Male inflorescences solitary; rachis covered with lax, rust-colored, lamellate scalelike trichomes. Female inflorescence: cupules in clusters of ca. 3 but usually 1 or 2 developed. Infructescences rarely over 10 cm; rachis 4-8 mm thick, basally without fruit and sparsely lenticellate. Cupule broadly turbinate, 2-2.5 × 2-3 cm, completely or almost completely enclosing nut, apically flat, wall 3-5 mm thick in middle; basal bracts reduced to scars but apically imbricate to ± arranged in rings, triangular, appressed. Nut broadly depressed turbinate, ca. 1.5 cm in diam., puberulent, wall 1-2 mm thick; scar covering 1/2-3/4 of nut, convex. Fl. Nov-Dec, fr. Oct-Dec of following year.
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