Trees 8-18(-25) m tall. Young branches brown, white lenticellate; current year branchlets purplish red, glabrous; terminal buds yellow sericeous. Petiole purplish red, 1-1.5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade oblong-elliptic to oblong, 9-16 × 3.5-5.5 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green becoming brown when dry, adaxially dark green and shiny, both surfaces glabrous, secondary veins 12-14 on each side of midvein, slender, and raised on both surfaces, base broadly cuneate, margin sparsely obtusely serrate, apex acuminate. Flowers solitary, 4-5 cm in diam. Pedicel (2.5-)4-6.5 cm, erect, glabrous; bracteoles 2, caducous, broadly obovate, 1-1.5 cm, glabrous. Sepals suborbicular, 5-6.5 mm in diam., outside glabrous, inside white sericeous, margin ciliolate. Petals white, broadly obovate, 2.5-3 × 1.5-2.2 cm, outside basally white puberulent, apex rounded. Stamens 1-1.5 cm; filaments basally adnate with petals. Ovary globose, tomentose but apically glabrous, 5-loculed; style 0.8-1.2 cm, glabrous; stigma 5, capitate. Capsule subglobose, ca. 2 cm in diam., 5-loculed with 2 seeds per locule; pericarp woody, splitting into 5 valves. Seeds together with wing 10-12 × ca. 7 mm. Fl. Jul-Aug, fr. Oct-Nov.