Evergreen trees up to 20 m tall, to 60 cm d.b.h.; stem gray-brown; branchlets hispid, glabrescent at maturity. Petiole 3-5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade obovate-oblong, oblanceolate, or oblong, 9-15 × 3-8 cm, papery, green adaxially, yellowish-green abaxially, glabrous on both surfaces, base cuneate, margin entire or shallowly repand, apex shortly acuminate to acute; lateral veins 5-7 pairs, flattened above, elevated below.

Flowers small, dioecious, apetalous, many-flowered, compound into racemelike panicles. Male inflorescences densely papillose, often fascicled on branchlets as well as on trunk, to 15 cm; bracts ovate-lanceolate, 2-3 mm, chestnut-yellowish, puberulent outside. Male flowers: sepals 4 or 5, oblong, 5-6 mm, puberulent outside; stamens 4-8; pistillode terete, bipartite. Female inflorescences to 35 cm; bracts as in male. Female flowers: sepals 4-6, oblong-lanceolate, ca. 6 mm, puberulent outside; ovary ovoid or globose, 3-celled, densely ferruginous hispid; styles very short, ca. 0.5 mm; stigma depressed, bifid at apex. Capsules baccate, ovoid or subglobose, 2-2.5 × 1.5-2 cm, red-yellow to purple when mature, indehiscent, or 3-valved when dry; arils white.

Seeds flat-elliptic or rotund, 1-1.3 cm. Fl. May-Apr, fr. Mar-Oct.