Trees, up to 16 m tall and 90 cm in diameter. Bark dark grey, live bark 2-4 cm thick, soft with scattered pieces of hard tissue, pinkish-brown with a few, narrow, white or yellow bands towards the outside, which turn orange on exposure; heartwood lacking. Branchlets glabrous. Terminal bud large with many glabrous, somewhat fimbriate, bud scales. Leaves coriaceous, glabrous, lanceolate to oblong-oblanceolate to elliptic-oblong, 2.5-7 x 7.5-18 cm, acute or acuminate, base shortly acute or rounded; both surfaces microscopically pitted; midrib slender, impressed, 7-14 pairs of erect-patent, arcuate nerves prominulous, in between often shorter nerves along the main nerves quadrangular, large pitting. Petioles slender, 1-2 cm long. Panicles sub-terminal, glabrous, many-flowered, up to 12 cm long. Pedicels slender, 4-5 mm long. Sepals sub-equal, glabrous outside, tomentellous inside, oblong, acutish, c. 6 mm long. Stamens slightly shorter, filaments pilose near the base. Fruit ellipsoid, up to 7 x 15 mm, sepals reflexed, oblong, 8 mm long; pedicels thick, often pinkish. Ripe fruit purple, pruinose.

Fl. Per.: April.

Type: Nepal, Wallich 2607 B (K).

Distribution: Outer Himalayan ranges in Pakistan and India to Sikkim and Burma.

Leaves which have a pleasant orange smell, are used for silkworm cultivation. This species is difficult to differentiate from Persea bombycina, which has round fruit, pilose flowers and a pilose leaf surface.