Tree 4-20 m. Twigs (1-) 1.5-2.5 mm diameter, glabrescent, hairs dull brown, 0.1 mm; older twigs grey-brown, striate; lenticels present but inconspicuous. Leaves membranous or subcoriaceous, elliptic-oblong, 14-22 by 6-8.5 cm, base shortly attenuate or rounded, apex acute-acuminate, the very tip sometimes ± blunt; upper surface glabrous, dark or blackish brown, lower surface greyish white (possibly due to irregularly shaped papillae), glabrescent, hairs widely spaced, stellate or scale-like, 0.1 mm long, the stouter hairs leaving minute dark scars (lens!); dots absent; midrib above slender, slightly raised, lateral nerves 12-15 per side, at 50-70° to the midrib, ± sunken above, on the lower leaf surface bright dark (purplish) brown, contrasting with the whitish background; lines of interarching sometimes distinct, venation coarse, faint; petioles blackish, 7-14 by 2-3 mm; leaf bud 8-12 by 2 mm, hairs dense, dull brown, appressed, 0.1-0.3 mm. Inflorescences between the leaves, of the Knema-type, sessile, brachyblasts to 5 mm, slender, with brown hairs 0.3 mm; bracts 1 mm, caducous; in male: with 1-4 flowers, buds of different sizes; female inflorescences (from infructescences): similar to males; flowers with dull brown ± appressed hairs 0.2-0.3 mm. Male flowers: pedicel 0.5-1 mm, bracteole broadly rounded or reniform, 1-1.5 mm, persistent; buds ellipsoid-oblong, 3.5-4 by 1.5 mm, apex acutish, not angled, base ± rounded, cleft 1/3-1/2, lobes 0.2-0.3 mm thick. Androecium 3 mm; androphore 1.5 mm, hairs dense, pale brown, curved, 0.3-0.5 mm; synandrium cylindrical, 1.5-1.7 by 0.6-0.7 mm, thecae c. 8, sterile apex minute, irregularly lobed, 0.1 mm, glabrous or with a few pale hairs 0.2 mm. Female flowers not seen. Fruits solitary, subsessile, variable in shape (see note 2), ellipsoid-oblong or subglobose (when slightly immature), 3-4.2 by 2.5 cm, apex sometimes shortly beaked, at base contracted into a thick, 3-5 mm long pseudostalk; hairs dense, scurfy or ± woolly, 0.1 or 0.5 mm (see note 2); pericarp conspicuously woody, 5 mm thick; seeds not seen; fruiting pedicel 3 mm.
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