Trees to 2 m tall or more. Twigs rigid, robust, 4-6-angled. Petiole 0.6-1.5 cm, robust; leaf blade abaxially yellow-green, adaxially dark green and shiny, ovate, ovate-oblong, or elliptic, rarely orbicular or lanceolate, 7-14(-20) × 3-6(-7) cm, thickly leathery, midvein raised abaxially; secondary veins 12-18 pairs, slender, slightly arching, raised on both surfaces, joining at leaf margin, tertiary veins and veinlets conspicuous, base broadly cuneate or subrounded, margin involute, apex obtuse, rounded, or emarginate. Plant monoecious; flowers 5-merous, male and female flowers usually mixed together, clustered or solitary in leafless axil, sometimes female flowers in cluster but male ones arranged in a pseudospike ca. 1 cm. Male flowers: sepals suborbicular, leathery, densely ciliolate at margin, inner 2 large, outer 3 small; petals yellow, obovate, ca. 2 × as long as sepals or more; stamens 5 fascicle bundles, each with 6-10 stamens; stalk ca. 2 mm; anthers 2-celled; fasciclodes 5, glandlike, rugose; pistillode absent. Female flowers: pedicels usually long; staminode fascicles 5; fasciclodes 5, free, irregularly erose on upper half; ovary globose, 3-5-loculed; stigma peltate, 5-cleft, smooth. Mature berry yellow, broadly oblong, smooth; seeds 1-3(or 4).

This species is characteristically a coastal tree.

Coastal broad-leaved forests. Taiwan (Gaoxiong, Huoshao Dao, cultivated in Taibei) [Indonesia (Java), Japan (Ryukyu Islands), Philippines, Sri Lanka].