Trees 9-15 m tall. Young branches brown, white lenticellate; current year branchlets gray puberulent or glabrous; terminal buds gray sericeous. Petiole 1-1.5 cm, glabrous or puberulent but glabrescent; leaf blade oblong to oblong-elliptic, 12-16 × 4-6 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially pale green, sparsely prostrate pilose, and becoming pale brown when dry, adaxially dark green and shiny and glabrous, midvein abaxially raised and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 10-12 on each side of midvein, slender, and raised on both surfaces, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin basally entire and sparsely obtusely serrate from middle apically, apex acuminate. Flowers solitary, ca. 4 cm in diam. Pedicel 3-6 cm, slender, puberulent or glabrous, white lenticellate; bracteoles 2, caducous, broadly obovate, ca. 1.4 × 1-1.2 cm, sparsely prostrate pilose. Sepals suborbicular, 3.5-4 mm in diam., outside gray puberulent or glabrous, inside white sericeous, margin ciliolate. Petals white, obovate to elliptic, 2-2.5 × 1-1.3 cm, outside basally velutinous. Stamens ca. 1 cm. Ovary tomentose; style ca. 8 mm, glabrous. Capsule globose, 1-1.5 cm in diam.; pericarp woody, splitting into 5 valves. Seeds together with wing ca. 6 × 4 mm. Fl. Jul-Sep, fr. Oct-Nov.