Trees to 25 m tall; apex of young branchlets, petioles, and young leaf blades sparsely covered with early glabrescent long hairs. Branchlets of last-year growth sparsely lenticellate; lenticels conspicuously raised. Petiole 1-2 cm; leaf blade oblong to elliptic-lanceolate, 12-20 × 4-7 cm, rigidly papery, abaxially ± glaucous when dry and with lamellate, waxy scalelike trichomes and usually sparsely pilose from base to middle of midvein when young, base cuneate and usually asymmetric, margin entire, apex acute; secondary veins 12-16 on each side of midvein, abruptly curving apically and gradually obscured; tertiary veins abaxially visible, subparallel. Male inflorescences solitary in axils of leaves or paniculate; rachis densely tawny puberulent. Female inflorescence with cupules in clusters of 3-5. Infructescence rachis 8-10 mm thick, lenticellate. Cupule turbinate, 2-3 × 2-2.8 cm, broadest apically, usually enclosing most of nut, outside pubescent when young, basally narrowed into a stalk, wall 2-3.5 mm thick; bracts basally enclosing and ± fused with cupule, apically triangular and thick. Nut subglobose, 1.5-2.2 cm in diam., with appressed minute hairs, apex ± flat, wall 1-2 mm thick on sides and ca. 3 mm near apex; scar covering 3/4-5/6 of nut, convex. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Sep-Oct of following year.

Broad-leaved evergreen forests, 700-1200 m. Guangdong, S Guangxi, SE Yunnan [NE Vietnam]