Trees, up to 40 m high, with large buttresses, deciduous. Bark flaky or scaly, deeply grooved, fibrous, hard to cut, red-brown to black; living bark pinkish, fibrous, blaze red fading to pink in fibrous section; sapwood clearly defined, straw; heartwood red-brown to dark red, dense, moderately soft to hard to cut across the grain, soft tissue finely reticulate, tyloses common. Branchlets smooth to striate, greyish brown, lenticels scattered, leaf-scars, distinct, leaf-traces sometimes visible. Leaves: petiole 1-2 cm long; blade obovate to obovate-elliptic to elliptic, (3.5-)5.5-19(-22) by (l.5-)3.5-8(-l0) cm, papyraceous, glossy, turning red before falling, base slightly decurrent, margin crenulate, serrulate or rarely denticulate, apex acuminate, acumen 5-10 mm long, tip blunt; midrib very prominent on the lower surface, flat above, nerves 9-13(-17) pairs, making an angle of c. 60° with the midrib, prominent on the lower surface, prominulous above, arcuately anastomosing near the margin, tertiary nerves distinct, irregular, reticulation dense, veinlets ending in a mucro near the sinus. Inflorescences: flowers solitary or in 2-3(-5)-flowered racemes; rachis 2(-4) mm thick; bracts at the base of the pedicels or median, sometimes absent, pedicels subtended by small leaves; bracteoles ovate, c. 6 by 6 mm. Flowers white, glabrous; pedicel (5-)7-18(-22) mm long, 2-3 mm thick. Calyx tube turbinate, 1.5-2.5 cm long, smooth; lobes ovate, (7-)9-10(-l2) by 7-10 mm, coriaceous, entire, tip obtuse. Petals obovate, up to 5.4 by 2.4 cm, green, membranaceous to papyraceous, reflexed, apex obtuse. Stamens forming tube of 1-1.5 cm long, white; free part c. 3.5 cm long, pink at base, white above; anthers c. 1.5 by 0.75 mm. Disc a rim of c. 1 mm high. Style c. 6.5 cm long, c. 1 mm thick. Fruits obovoid to elongate-obovoid, without basal neck, up to 7 cm (including calyx lobes) by 3 cm, green; pericarp fibrous, 2-3 mm thick. Seeds ovoid, oblique, 3-angular; seedcoat silvery brown to chocolate, coriaceous, 0.3 mm thick; radicle spirally convolute.
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