A large shrub or tree, 10-40 m tall. Stem branching sympodially with grey-black, roughly fissured bark. Leaves with 2-4.5 cm long, pruinose petiole; lamina narrowly to broadly elliptic-ovate, 5-20 cm long, 3-8 cm broad, cuneate at the base, entire, acute-acuminate but not mucronate, glabrous, leathery, bright green above, pale beneath; stipules oblong-lanceolate, 4-5 cm long, mostly reddish. Flowers solitary, axillary, articulated to the reflexed peduncle; pedicel 1-1.5 cm long, pruinose. Hypanthium campanulate, 1-2 cm long, smooth below, ribbed above, reddish in colour, lobes equal to or shorter than the tube, linear, erect. Petals brown, bilobed to halfway down or less, silky-hairy at the base, especially near the margins, lobes 2-4-bristled at the tips. Stamens with alternately long and short filaments; anthers linear-oblong, 4-5 mm long, dorsifixed, apiculate. Style angular towards the base, filiform, stigmatic lobes 3-4, conspicuous. Berry 2-3 cm long, crowned by calyx lobes. Hypocotyl 10-25 cm long, ± fusiform, longitudinally ridged.