Trees, up to 25 m tall, to 30 cm d.b.h., all except young parts glabrous. Branchlets and young branchlets terete, smallest ones ca. 2 mm in diam., all gray, with few suborbicular leaf scars; young ones with many clustered scale scars at base. Terminal buds small, gray- or rusty sericeous. Leaves many, clustered at apex of branchlet; petiole robust, 1-1.5 cm, concave-convex; leaf blade green-white and opaque abaxially, shiny adaxially, narrowly elliptic, 6-10(-16) × 1.5-3.2(-4.2) cm, leathery, shallowly foveolate adaxially, lateral veins 12-17 pairs, slender, slightly conspicuous on both surfaces, arcuately interconnected at ends, base acute, margin revolute, apex rounded. Panicle axillary on upper part of branchlet, 3.5-8(-12) cm, glabrous, black when dry, few branched; peduncle elongate, as pedicel subfleshy. Pedicel slender, 3-8 mm, dilated in fruit, not verrucose. Perianth lobes slightly fleshy, oblong, ca. 4 × 2 mm, slightly acute at apex, glabrous outside, white sericeous inside. Fertile stamens ca. 2.5 mm, pilose; filaments of 3rd whorl each with 2 stalked glands; anthers ellipsoid-square, obtuse at apex, as long as filaments, 4-celled; cells introrse in 1st and 2nd whorls, upper 2 cells lateral and lower 2 cells extrorse in 3rd whorl. Staminodes conspicuous, sagittate, stalked. Ovary ovoid; style slender; stigma inconspicuous. Fruit green when fresh but black when dry, globose or ovoid, 1.2-2 cm, wrinkled. Fl. Jul, fr. Oct-Feb of next year.

The wood is finely grained, heavy, and durable.

Valleys, forests; 1400-1700 m. Hainan [N Vietnam].