Trees ca. 15 m tall. Young branchlets dark purplish brown, conspicuously sulcate. Petiole 1-2.5 cm; leaf blade lanceolate to oblanceolate, 8-15 × 2.5-5 cm, rigidly papery, base shortly cuneate to broadly so, margin entire, apex shortly to long acuminate; secondary veins 13-16 on each side of midvein, very slender, evident; tertiary veins abaxially not visible. Male inflorescences in a panicle; rachis puberulent. Female and androgynous inflorescences 6-18 cm; cupules in clusters of ca. 3. Infructescence rachis 6-10 mm thick, basally minutely lenticellate. Cupule plate-shaped, 0.5-1.5 × 1.8-2.5 cm, basally narrowed; bracts triangular to rhomboid, squamate, appressed, with grayish puberulent scalelike glands, sometimes basal ones connate into 2 or 3 concentric rings. Nut depressed globose, 1.5-2 × 2-2.5 cm, apex rounded to ± flat, wall 1-1.5 mm thick; scar 1.2-1.5 cm in diam., concave. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Oct-Nov of following year.

* Mixed mesophytic forests of calcareous formation; 1000-1800 m. SE Yunnan (Xichou Xian)