Woody liana, repeatedly branched, often reaching the top of medium-sized trees; young branches cov-ered with a fulvous indumentum. Leaves elliptic to broadly elliptic, 9-18 by 3.5-10 cm, chartaceous to coriaceous, base cuneate or rounded, apex broad with a short obtuse apiculum or more gradually nar-rowed to an acute apex, midrib slightly channelled above, prominent below, lateral veins c. 5, arched and meeting within the margin; upper surface of ma-ture leaves with widely spaced remnants of stellate hairs, lower surface with a loose or close felt of stel-late hairs together with a variable number of larger, more tufted, stellate hairs especially on the veins; petiole 8-17 mm long, densely covered with stellate hairs. Inflorescences axillary and terminal, pleio-chasial, often produced profusely on short leafy lat-eral branches, coming to resemble panicles when the foliage abscisses, covered with a short dense indu-mentum; pleiochasia 7-15 cm long, bearing opposite or verticillate short branches (c. 1.5-2 cm) each with a small number of flowers and minute subulate bracts mostly caducous before anthesis. Male receptacle bowl-shaped, 7-9 mm Ø at anthesis (without the tepals), with 5-7 irregular tepals eventually opening to disclose the numerous (30-40) stamens, outer surface with a dense covering of small stellate hairs, inner surface with very short simple hairs; anthers sessile, c. 0.75-1.25 mm long, the connective sometimes with short hairs at the base and apex. Female receptacle cup-shaped, 2-3 mm ø at an-thesis, upper surface concave with a small central os-tiole, outer surface with indumentum as in male, inner surface covered with long simple hairs between the carpels; carpels c. 10-12, distributed over the inner surface of the receptacle, tapering to filiform styles (c. 2 mm long) which project through the os-tiole, becoming reflexed. Immature fruit subspheri-cal with an unusually asymmetric beak developed from the tepals; at maturity the enlarged receptacle ruptures irregularly to form c. 4-6 coriaceous arms 2-2.5 cm long to which the ripe achenes are at-tached; drupes spherical, sessile, with a shining black surface, mesocarp succulent, endocarp stony, 7 mm when dry.
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