Large to small trees, 5-15 m tall. Bark gray-white. Branchlets, petioles, and inflorescences densely yellowish brown or gray-blackish pubescent to tomentose. Petiole 1-2.5 cm; leaf blade obovate, elliptic-obovate, broadly oblanceolate, or oblanceolate, 8-27 × 2.5-9 cm, leathery, abaxially pubescent to villous, adaxially glabrous or hairy along veins, midrib and lateral veins adaxially impressed, lateral veins 8-13 pairs, curved, anastomosing at margin, veinlets numerous, densely reticulate, base attenuate, apex acute-acuminate or acute-caudate-acuminate. Panicles 7-15(-18) cm, branched at top of peduncle. Flowers 4-5 mm. Perianth subequal, ovate, hairy on both surfaces. Filaments hairy, particularly in 3rd series, those of 3rd series with sessile glands at base. Staminodes hairy. Ovary globose, glabrous; stigma indistinct or dish-shaped. Fruit ovoid, ca. 1 cm × 5-6 mm; fruiting pedicel somewhat or conspicuously thickened, hairy; persistent perianth lobes hairy on both surfaces, loose. Seed with solitary embryo, symmetrical on both sides. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Sep-Oct.

Mixed broad-leaved forests; usually below 1000 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Vietnam].