Trees or shrubs. Bark pale gray. Branchlets dark colored, striate with age, minutely pubescent when young, glabrescent. Petiole 1-2 cm, narrowly grooved; leaf blade in 2 ranks, ovate, oblong, or broadly elliptic, 9-23 × 4-14 cm, membranous to thinly papery, often drying black, glabrous when mature except for mostly whitish pubescence along midvein and secondary veins, secondary veins 7-15 on each side of midvein, base rounded, obtuse, or truncate and often inequilateral, apex acute to acuminate. Inflorescences axillary or on short woody branches, racemose or cymose, 1- or several flowered; peduncle 2-5 mm; bracts minute, deciduous. Flowers pendulous. Pedicel 1-5 cm, pubescent, bracteolate. Sepals ovate, ca. 0.7 mm, pubescent, connate at base, apex acute and reflexed. Petals green, turning yellow and inside basally with a purplish brown blotch, linear to linear-lanceolate, 5-8 × 0.5-1.8 cm, tomentose and with several veins minutely pubescent, basal claw small. Stamens oblong-oblanceolate, 0.7-1 mm; connectives apically acute, pubescent. Carpels 10-12, ca. 4 mm, puberulent when young, glabrescent; stigmas clavate, lamellate, fused, with a U-shaped groove on inner side running down to base of ovary to form a convex pileate disk. Monocarp stipes 1.2-1.8 cm; monocarps nearly black, ovoid, globose, or oblong, 1.5-2.3 × ca. 1 cm, pulpy, glabrous. Seeds 2-12 per monocarp, pale brown, in 2 series, surface pitted. Fl. Apr-Aug, fr. Oct-Mar.

The flowers of Cananga odorata are the source of an essential oil used in perfumery, soaps, and cosmetics. The flowers are also laid between cloth to impart an agreeable scent.

Cultivated. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan [native to NE Australia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, and Thailand].