Trees to 30 m tall; branchlets and petioles sparsely covered with brownish early glabrescent long hairs when young. Branchlets of current year and petioles dark brown when dry; branchlets of last-year growth lenticellate; lenticels raised. Petiole 3-4 cm; leaf blade oblong, 15-25 × 6-8 cm, leathery, adaxially with dense, tawny, puberulent scalelike trichomes, base cuneate and decurrent on petiole, margin entire, apex acuminate to acute; secondary veins 8-14 on each side of midvein. Male inflorescences axillary, solitary. Female inflorescences 8-10 cm, sometimes androgynous and to 16 cm; cupules in clusters of ca. 3. Infructescences 6-10 cm; rachis 7-9 mm thick, lenticellate. Cupule broadly turbinate, 1.5-2 × 2.5-2.8 cm, broadest apically, enclosing most of nut, wall 2-5 mm thick; bracts triangular, thickened, usually ridged in center. Nut ± depressed globose, 1.2-1.5 × 1-2 cm, with appressed minute hairs, apex ± flat; scar covering 2/3-3/4 of nut, convex. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Oct-Nov of following year.

* Broad-leaved evergreen forests in moist places; circa 1500 m. SE Yunnan (Pingbian Miaozu Zizhixian)