Trees; branches and leaf blades glabrous. Shoots blackish brown when dry. Petiole 1-2.5 cm; leaf blade elliptic, ovate, lanceolate, or sometimes obovate, 10-20 × 4-7 cm, thickly leathery, abaxially often grayish, adaxially yellow-green when dry, base cuneate to rounded, margin entire, apex mucronate to acuminate; midvein adaxially raised; secondary veins 10-13 on each side of midvein. Infructescences 10-25 cm; rachis covered with pale grayish brown, feltlike, short hairs, glabrescent. Cupule globose, 2.5-3.5 cm in diam., puberulent when young, outside glabrescent, wall 1-1.5 mm thick; bracts spinelike, arranged in discontinuous rings or spirals, 2-6 mm, free or base slightly connate. Nut 1(-3) per cupule, subglobose, 1.5-1.8 cm in diam., densely puberulent. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Oct-Dec of following year.

Broad-leaved evergreen forests; 1000-1500 m. S Yunnan [NE India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam]