Shrubs or trees up to 10 m tall and 25 cm in diameter, with rough gray or brown bark and white latex; young shoots grayish brown, cracked and sometimes scaly, densely brown pubescent or tomentose at first, soon glabrous, furnished with numerous prominent, persistent inflorescence bases, lenticels absent.
Leaves
Leaves coriaceous, elliptic, broadly oblong, ovate, or suborbicular, (2-)3-8(-12) cm long, (1-)2-4(-6) cm wide, venation brochidodromous,
marginal vein present, midrib not raised on upper surface, secondaries 7-12 pairs, ascending, straight, parallel, intersecondaries short to well-developed, higher order venation reticulate to finely areolate, upper surface of mature leaves glabrous, lower surface appressed brown to ferruginous tomentose, apex rounded, truncate, or obtuse, sometimes slightly emarginate, base acute, cuneate to rounded or truncate, petioles (1-)1.5-3(-4) cm long, not or only slightly channeled, pubescent.
Flowers
Flowers scented, unisexual (and the plants dioecious) or perfect(?), 1-5 in inflorescences in the leaf axils and on stems below the leaves, base often persistent and forming a stout, scaly, woody projection 1-5 mm long, pedicels (2-)4-6(-8) mm long, appressed puberulent; sepals 4-5(6), broadly elliptic or ovate, 3-5 mm long, appressed puberulent externally, glabrous within, apex obtuse or rounded; corolla pale green or whitish, in pistillate and perfect(?) flowers rotate, 4-4.5 mm long, tube ca. 1 mm long, lobes (5-)7-9(-12), ovate, elliptic, or lanceolate, 3-3.5 mm long, usually unequal, sometimes irregularly lobed, glabrous or sometimes pubescent within at the insertion of the stamens, apex acute to rounded, in pistillate flowers reduced to 1-8 distinct or partly connate lobes or scales; nectary disk absent; stamens in staminate and perfect(?) flowers (6)7-10(11), inserted at top of corolla tube, with prominent filament traces to base of tube, absent in pistillate flowers, staminodes in staminate and perfect(?) flowers irregular or absent, usually only 1-2 alternate with the stamens, lanceolate, subulate, or petaloid, glabrous, absent in pistillate flowers; filaments 2.5-3.5 mm long, glabrous, apex geniculate; anthers lanceolate-sagittate, 1.5-1.75 mm long, glabrous; ovary globose or truncate, (2)3-5(6)-celled, pubescent or glabrous; style 2-3 mm long, glabrous; stigma capitate.
Fruit
Fruit reddish to purple or black at maturity, smooth, globose, ellipsoid, or ovoid, 1-2 cm long, sometimes beaked, glabrous.
Seeds
Seed 1, 0.8-1.3 cm long, not laterally compressed, broad, apex obtuse, sometimes apiculate, base truncate, testa smooth, shiny, 1-2 mm thick, scar cordate, basal or basi-ventral, ca. 7 mm long and 5 mm wide, embryo with thin, foliaceous, distinct cotyledons.
