Trees ca. 15 m tall; young branchlets and young leaf blades tawny tomentose. Branchlets of last-year growth blackish, obscurely lenticellate. Petiole 1-1.5 cm; leaf blade narrowly oblong to lanceolate, 6-11 × 1.5-3 cm, rigidly papery, adaxially with a thick layer of tawny, waxy scalelike trichomes and sometimes with minute wrinkles when dry, base cuneate, margin entire or sometimes shallowly undulate, apex acuminate; secondary veins 10-14 on each side of midvein; tertiary veins abaxially not visible or very slender, evident. Androgynous inflorescence to 18 cm; rachis densely tawny tomentose with short hairs. Female inflorescences 6-10 cm; cupules in clusters of ca. 3. Infructescences 4-5 cm. Cupule obconic, ca. 1.7 cm, enclosing most of nut, wall ca. 1.5 mm thick; basal bracts fused to wall and reduced to scars, apically separate from wall by a subulate apex, appressed, and ovate-triangular, tawny puberulent and with waxy scalelike trichomes when young, glabrescent. Nut broadly conical, ca. 1.4 cm in diam., with appressed minute hairs, wall ca. 1 mm thick; scar covering ca. 1/3 of nut, convex. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. Jul-Aug of following year.

* Broad-leaved evergreen forests; 700-1200 m. N Guangdong, Hunan