Shrub or small tree, 2-3 m, sparsely branched. Branchlets reddish-brown, terete, glabrous, hollow. Leaves chartaceous to subcoriaceous, glabrous, oblanceolate, rarely elliptic-lanceolate, 18-30 by 5½-9 cm; base attenuate; apex acute to short-acuminate; margins recurved; nerves 8-12 pairs, elevated on both surfaces, spreading, curved towards the margin; veins slightly elevated on both surfaces, rather widely reticulate; petiole stout, about as thick as the branchlet, red when fresh (fide BRASS), reddish-brown to black when dry. Inflorescences terminal and/or in the axils of the terminal node, subsessile to short-peduncled (peduncle 5-9 mm in fruit), with small, decussate bracts towards the base. Involucral bracts cream-coloured (fleshy in bud), 8 or more, arranged in whorls, those of the inner whorl longer, oblong or ovate, 2.5-3.5 by 1-2 cm, obtuse or acute, slightly puberulous towards the upper part inside, especially near the margins, glabrescent, sometimes pellucid-dotted, 6-20-flowered. Flowers infundibular, 3.75-4.25 cm long. Floral tube 1.25-1.5 cm diam. at the throat, densely pubescent outside and towards the base inside. Calyx lobes sparsely pubescent outside and densely pubescent inside, +-oblong, c. 9 by 5 cm, obtuse. Petaloid appendages rim-like. Stamens included, filamentous, 6-10 mm, free from the tube at the throat or slightly below it; anthers oblong, about 1.5 mm long. Disk cup-shaped, crenulate, c. 2 mm long. Pistil included. Ovary glabrous, ellipsoid, c. 3 mm long, gradually narrowed towards the apex; style filiform, c. 3 cm; stigma globose. Fruit ellipsoid to fusiform, 2.75-3 1/3 by 1.5-1.75 cm, slightly compressed, acuminate on both ends. Seeds broadly ovate or obovate, or semiglobose, plano-convex, 10 by 7-10 mm, sharply pointed at the apex.
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