Trees, 15-20 m tall; bole straight, bark greyish-white, blaze creamy yellow, branches spreading, minutely puberulous with greyish, crispate, mostly fascicled hairs when young, glabrate with age. Leaves simple, alternate, distichous, estipulate; petiole 10-20 mm long, slender, grooved above, minutely puberulous; lamina 9-21 x 4-9 cm, oblong, elliptic, ovate or elliptic-lanceolate; base obtuse or oblique; apex acuminate or acute; margin entire, undulate, glabrous, coriaceous; lateral nerves 8-11 pairs, pinnate, prominent; intercostae scalariform, obscure. Flowers bisexual, yellowish-green, fragrant, to 6 cm across, several in peduncled, axillary cymes; bracts subulate, 1-2 mm long, puberulous on both sides, cauducous; pedicel 2-5 cm long, slender; sepals 3, 4-6 mm long, ovate, pubescent, reflexed, shortly connate at base; petals 6, green, turning yellow, linear or lanceolate, valvate, puberulous; inner ones smaller, subequal; torus some what convex; stamens many, closely arranged, to 3.5 mm, connectives broadly appendaged, acute, concealing anthers; carpels many, glabrous at the very base, ovules many attached to the suture, stylules slender, terminated by a club-shaped stigma. Fruit aggregate of berry, 3-15 in a cluster, 1-15 x 0.5-1 cm, globose, glabrous, pulpy, black; seeds 2-12, transversely compressed, yellowish-brown.