Erect glabrous shrub or small tree, 1–5 m. tall, sparsely divaricately branched; young branches lenticellate; bark greyish, somewhat scaly and eventually longitudinally fissured.. Leaves restricted to new growth at apices of branches; blades oblong to broadly elliptic, 5.5–10 cm. long, 3–5 cm. wide, shortly acuminate or sometimes obtuse at apex, acute at base (? or rounded), stiffly papery, chestnut to blackish brown above, glaucous to pale brown beneath when dry; lateral nerves in 5–6 main pairs; tertiary nerves coarsely reticulate and sometimes rather difficult to observe beneath; domatia present as tufts of hair; petiole 0.6–1 cm. long; stipules sheath-like, 1–3 mm. long, bearing a caducous linear somewhat keeled lobe 3–5 mm. long.. Flowers (4–)5-merous, borne in pedunculate 15–35-flowered cymes arising at nodes from which the leaves have been shed; peduncle 1–1.5 cm. long, glabrous or sparsely pubescent on either side; pedicels 2–4 mm. long, pubescent on either side; bracteoles linear or subulate, up to 2 mm. long.. Calyx usually coriaceous, drying yellow-green or sometimes greyish; tube ±1.5 mm. long; limb distinctly wider than tube, 2–3 mm. long, lobed to ± the middle; lobes oblong or lanceolate to ovate, obtuse to rounded, eventually spreading.. Corolla green, rather thick, wrinkled when dry, blunt in bud; tube 2–3 mm. long, villous at the throat, then with a ring of deflexed hairs 1/3 to halfway from the top; lobes oblong or triangular, ± 4 mm. long, thickened and subobtuse at apex.. Stigmatic knob shortly exserted, slightly longer than wide, 1.5 mm. long, bifid at apex.. Fruit almost square in outline, 2.3 cm. across, 1.2 cm. thick; calyx-limb persistent; pyrene ellipsoid, ± 2–3 cm. long, 1.2–2 cm. wide, 1.1 cm. thick, the walls thickly woody with longitudinal ridges.
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