Young shoots purple-brown, slender, sparsely to densely puberulent and with yellowish-brown small lamellate waxy scalelike trichomes. Petiole ca. 1 cm or rarely longer; leaf blade lanceolate to obovate-elliptic, 4-9 × 1.5-4 cm or rarely smaller or larger, papery to thinly leathery, pubescent when young but early glabrescent, at least adaxially along midvein with very lax and thick or tight and thin, reddish-brown to yellowish-brown, small, lamellate, waxy scalelike trichomes, base sharply acute to round and inequilateral, apex mucronate to caudate; midvein adaxially impressed; secondary veins 9-15 on each side of midvein, very slender, evident.

Female inflorescence solitary in the leaf axil. Infructescence ca. 15 cm. Cupule globose, 2.5-4 cm in diam., splitting into 4 segments, wall ca. 2.5 mm thick; bracts spinelike, completely covering cupule, 6-10 mm, sparsely puberulent, base of some connate into bundles. Nut 1 per cupule, broadly conical, 1-1.5 × 0.8-1.3 cm, glabrous; scar basal. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Aug-Nov of the following year.