Young stems pubescent, sometimes sparsely so. Leaves with pubescent (or subglabrous) petioles 5-13 cm; lamina broadly cordiform to rotund, base cordate with rounded or sometimes obtusely angled basal lobes or truncate, apex abruptly acuminate, 10-22 by 9-22 cm, margin entire or sometimes repand-denticulate, both surfaces pubescent (or subglabrous), fine reticulation prominent on lower surface. Inflorescences axillary, apparently paniculate, 18-35 cm long with spreading to retrorse lateral branches, the lower ones up to 12 cm, patent-hispidulous to subglabrous. Male flowers on pedicels 1-2 mm: sepals white or yellow, 2.5 mm, externally sparsely pubescent to glabrous, the outer 3 ± elliptic, the inner 3 broader and concave; petals ± rhomboid, 1 mm long, fleshy with lateral thickenings; synandrium c. 1 mm long, sometimes domed at apex, anthers with transverse slits. Female flowers on pedicels 3-4 mm: sepals and petals similar to male; staminodes minute, peg-like c. 0.25 mm long but sometimes (as in lectotype) stamen-like, c. 0.75 mm long; carpels 1 mm long, stigma laciniate with 3-6 reflexed lobes. Plants with all flowers hermaphrodite sometimes occurring, these with 6, free stamens c. 0.75 mm long. Drupes white (or red) radiating from subglobose carpophore 1-1.5 mm ø terminating a glabrous pedicel 3-4 mm, drying strongly ridged, ± broadly elliptic in outline and abruptly pointed at both ends, 9-11 mm long, glabrous; endocarp broadly elliptic in outline, with a prominent median dorsal ridge (composed of a double row of closely set spines) produced at both ends into basal and apical keels, and two thin prominent lateral wings which are continuous or composed of separate spines, with further small spines present over dorsal surface, ventral surface with a ring of radially incurved spines bordering a ventral chamber and leaving a central oval aperture.
Secondary rain-forest, Pometia-Intsia forest with much regrowth, river-side and cane-brakes in floodbed, up to 1000 m. Fl. fr. Jan.-Dec.
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