Trees 5-8 m tall. Branchlets terete, glabrous. Petiole 1-2 cm; leaf blade lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 10-20 × 2-4 cm, leathery, base cuneate and slightly decurrent, glabrous, margin entire or remotely denticulate, apex acuminate to long acuminate; midvein adaxially slightly impressed; secondary veins 7-10 on each side of midvein, basally straight, curved upward and anastomosing before margin. Inflorescences ramiflorous, 11-12 cm; rachis and pedicel appressed brown pilosulose; bracts of flower pairs lanceolate, ca. 1 mm; floral bracts ca. 0.2 mm. Pedicels 2.5-3 mm, connate to middle. Perianth whitish, ca. 2.5 cm; limb ellipsoid, appressed pilosulose. Anthers ca. 4 mm. Hypogynous glands connate. Ovary glabrous. Fruit base contracted into a short stipe, apex markedly beaked; pericarp ca. 1 mm thick, woody.

Records of the Vietnamese species Helicia cauliflora Merrill from China (in FRPS) are now determined as H. dongxingensis.

* Mixed forests, hilly slopes, often by streams; 100-500 m. S Guangxi.