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A small tree. It grows 15 m high. It loses many leaves during the year. The trunk is short and is usually swollen at the base. The crown is flattened due to spreading branches. The small branches are thick and have red-brown hairs. The bark is grey and scaly with deep cracks. The leaves are compound with leaflets like fingers on a hand. There are 3-7 unequal leaflets. They are dark green and leathery. They are shiny above and have brown hairs underneath. The leaves have stalks 1 cm long. The flowers are very small. Male and female flowers are on separate trees. Female flowers occur singly and male flowers are in dense clusters. They are orange-brown. The fruit is round and a dull yello-green colour. They are 2 cm across and have soft hairs. The fruit break open to release the seeds.
Leaves alternate, subopposite or opposite; petioles 2–11 cm long; leaflets 3–5(7), the median often much larger than the laterals, 6–15 × 2.5–5.5 cm, elliptic-oblong, oblanceolate or obovate, rounded, obtuse or subacute at the apex, attenuate or cuneate at the base, thinly coriaceous, the midrib sunk in a channel, fairly prominent beneath, evenly pubescent along the midrib and otherwise sparingly pubescent above at first, later glabrescent, evenly to densely fulvous-to sericeous-tomentose beneath, shiny and dark green above, duller and paler beneath; lateral nerves in 10–17 pairs, brochidodromous well within the margin, often with interstitials, slightly prominent above; petiolules 1–7 mm long, or leaflets subsessile.
Female flowers: pedicels 0.5 mm long, extending to 5 mm in fruit, stout, ferrugineous-pubescent; sepals 2.5–3 × 1.5 mm, triangular-lanceolate, minutely pubescent within at the apex, otherwise more or less as in the male; disk 2 mm in diameter; ovary 2-locular, 1.5–3 × 1.5–3 mm, ovoid-subglobose, densely ferrugineous-tomentose; styles 2, 1–1.5 mm long, densely tomentose, stigmas velvety, greyish-yellow-brown.
Male flowers: pedicels 0.5 mm long; sepals 6–8, 2 mm long, oblong, obtuse, ferrugineous-pubescent without, glabrous within; stamens 7, 5–6 mm long, anthers c. 1 mm long, bright yellow; disk 2 mm in diameter, slightly convex; pistillode minute or absent.
Male inflorescences subsessile, or with peduncles 1–7 mm long, densely ferrugineous-tomentose; bracts 1.5 mm long, suborbicular-ovate, pubescent; flowers densely capitate.
Female peduncles 3 mm long, extending a little in fruit, commonly 1-flowered; bracts 3 mm long, oblong-lanceolate.
Bole short, straight, c. 25 cm in diameter; bark rough, reticulate, c. 2 cm thick, dark grey; wood dull brown.
Twigs thick, ferrugineous-pubescent at first, later glabrescent; leaf scar margins raised, tuberculiform.
Fruit 1.5 × 1.6 cm, obovoid-subglobose, 2-lineate, brownish velvety-tomentose, orange when ripe.
A small, spreading often somewhat stunted tree to 10 m high, with a milky latex.
Seeds 1 × 1 × 0.4 cm, compressed-rhomboid, pale yellowish-brown.
