Buttressed tree, 15-30 m, with flatly spreading, whorled branches. Bark brown, wood yellow. Young branchlets rather stout and very early glabrescent although the terminal buds are sericeous. Leaves papyraceous, spirally arranged along the branchlets or sometimes whorled, glabrous somewhat shiny and rather conspicuously minutely verruculose on both surfaces, manifestly pellucid-punctate, elliptic, narrowly elliptic, obovate-ellptic or oblong-ellptic, 12-24 by 6½-9 cm, acuminate at the apex, cuneate at the base; nerves 9-14 pairs; domatia absent or inconspicuous; petiole glabrous, 3½-5 cm, usually with 2 glands near the centre. Flowers sessile, cream, brown or yellow, in axillary spikes 7-14 cm long; rhachis appressed-pubescent. Bracts pubescent, filiform, 2½ mm. Lower receptacle (ovary) densely tomentose or sericeous, 1½-3 mm; upper receptacle sericeous, shallow-cupuliform, 1 by 2½ mm. Calyx-lobes hairy outside glabrous within, ovate-triangular, often recurved, 2-2½ by 1½ mm. Filaments glabrous, 3.5 mm; anthers 0.7 mm long. Disk barbate. Style glabrous 3½-5 mm. Fruit black when ripe, appressed-pubescent when young, glabrous when mature, ellpsoid, slightly compressed, 3½-4 by 2-2½ by 1.8 cm, apiculate, showing in cross-section a thick sclerenchymatous band with rather irregular spoke-like projections and included in the sclerenchyma a layer near the centre containing dispersed air-chambers.
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Trees from 25 to 40 m tall. The trunk can be 3.3 m around. The bark is dark brown and thick. It peels in strips from below and the lower part bends outwards. The crown is small and cone shaped. The branches are not in distinct layers. The leaves are generally in clusters on the ends of twigs. The leaf stalk is 2-3 cm long and often curved. The leaves are 10-18 cm long and 6-9 cm wide. The tip is rounded but the base is tapering. The flowers are about 3 mm long and on spikes about 18 cm long. Male and female flowers are separate on the same spike. The fruit is 4-5 cm long and 2-3.5 cm wide. It is mostly smooth and unwrinkled but sometimes flattened. It does not have a distinct wing. The fruit is red and firmly fleshy when ripe.
An emergent or large canopy tree in dense primary rainforest, also in more open, secondary formations and grassland; at elevations up to 300 metres. Also found on swampy ground.
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A tropical plant. It is mostly in the lowland areas but can be up to 1,200 m altitude. It can grow on swampy ground.
Rain-forest, also in secondary grassland, from sea-level to 300 m.
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