Trees ca. 15 m tall. Branches glabrous. Petiole 1.5-2.5 cm; leaf blade elliptic, ovate-elliptic, or rarely obovate-elliptic, 10-15 × 3.5-6 cm, firmly leathery, abaxially reddish brown, sparsely covered with adnate, black-brown, rounded, lamellate, waxy scalelike trichomes when young, grayish and waxy with age, base shortly attenuate to broadly cuneate and sometimes oblique, margin serrate from middle to apex, apex acute; midvein adaxially slightly raised; secondary veins 10-13 on each side of midvein. Infructescences dense, 10-30 cm; rachis 6-10 mm thick. Cupule 4-4.5 cm in diam., wall 1-2 mm thick; bracts spinelike, entirely covering outside of cupule, connate at base or to middle 1/2 into 3-7-spined bundles. Nuts (2 or)3 per cupule, broadly conical, ca. 1.2 cm in diam., densely brown puberulent; scar 6-10 mm in diam. Fr. Oct.

* Broad-leaved evergreen forests; 1400-1700 m. Yunnan (Xichou Xian)