Trees, 8-12 m tall; bark gray; twig tips densely pubescent, branchlets finally glabrous. Leaves usually alternate, sometimes subopposite or clustered at apices of branches; petiole 2-6 cm, pubescent with short spreading hairs or glabrous; leaf blade greenish abaxially, deep green adaxially, narrowly to broadly elliptic, oblong-elliptic, or ovate, large, 13-40 × 6-18 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially densely pubescent with hairs rather long (ca. 0.5 mm) and spreading, or glabrous, adaxially initially pubescent, especially along midvein and main veins, finally glabrous, midvein raised abaxially, slightly impressed adaxially, lateral veins 10-26 pairs, base obtuse to rounded, margin serrate to serrulate, teeth obtuse, leaf apex usually obtuse to rounded, contracting abruptly to a short acumen, or apiculate, rarely acute. Inflorescences paniculate or racemose; rachises, pedicels, and abaxial surfaces of bracts densely pubescent to tomentose, hairs spreading, brownish when dry, short; bracts lanceolate, 5-6 mm. Flowers unisexual. Sepals 3 or 4, triangular-ovate, 0.6-1.5 cm, outside tomentose, hairs yellowish when dry. Staminate flowers: arranged in erect terminal pubescent panicles 4-8(-15) cm; stamens 120-160, 3-6 mm, glabrous; filaments ca. 5 mm; anthers oblong, ca. 1 mm. Pistillate flowers: solitary at apices of branches; ovary globose; styles (4-)6-8, very short; stigmas (4-)6-8, ca. 1 cm, palmately branched; branches irregularly lobed, flattened, tortuous, shortly pubescent beneath, glabrous above. Capsule ovoid, to 9 × 6 cm, densely orange-yellow or reddish tomentose (drying brown), glabrescent, (5-)6-8-valvate. Seeds including wing ca. 2 cm, dark to light brown when dry, seed proper small. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Sep-Oct.

Evergreen broad-leaved forests; 500-1700 m. Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Sichuan, Yunnan [Vietnam].