Adina griffithii J. D. Hooker, Fl. Brit. India 3: 24. 1880; Cephalanthus navillei H. Léveillé; Nauclea griffithii (J. D. Hooker) Haviland; Neonauclea navillei (H. Léveillé) Rehder.

Trees, evergreen, to 20 m tall; trunk often buttressed at base, sometimes with aerial roots; bark greenish gray, fissured and cracked, sometimes warty, with inner bark yellow, pale brown to pink; branchlets quadrangular becoming terete, grayish brown, rugose or striate, white lenticellate, glabrescent. Petiole 8-20 mm, stout, glabrous; leaf blade drying thickly papery to subleathery, obovate to elliptic, 8-22 × 4-15 cm, both surfaces glabrous, base acute to cuneate and frequently decurrent, apex rounded then abruptly cuspidate or acute; secondary veins 5-7 pairs, in abaxial axils with glabrous domatia; stipules obovate to obovate-oblong, 5-10 × 3-8 mm, weakly keeled, glabrous, apex obtuse. Inflorescences puberulent to glabrescent; peduncles 1 or 3, 2-6 cm; flowering heads solitary, 8-12 mm in diam. across calyces, 25-30 mm in diam. across corollas; involucral bracts not seen; bracteoles 0.5-1 mm. Calyx with ovary portion obconic, 1-1.5 mm, glabrous in lower 2/3, pilosulous in upper 1/3; limb partially lobed, with basal tubular portion ca. 1 mm; lobes with shaft clavate, 3.5-4.5 mm, densely pilosulous, with apical portion fusiform, deciduous before corollas open, pilosulous on lower portions, glabrous at apex. Corolla red (Henry 12676, MO!), narrowly funnelform to salverform, outside glabrous; tube 7-8 mm, inside glabrous to sparsely pubescent; lobes elliptic-oblong, 2-3 mm, acute. Stigmas subglobose, ca. 1 mm, exserted for 5-6 mm. Fruiting heads ca. 20 mm in diam. Capsules obconic, 5-6 mm, pilosulous at least at apex; seeds not seen.

Dense forests in valleys or on humid slopes; 800-1300 m. Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, Myanmar].