Trees, to 16 m tall; bark gray, exfoliating longitudinally. Branchlets stellate puberulent when young. Petiole 5-6.5 cm, sometimes swollen at both ends; leaf blade elliptic-ovate, oblong-ovate, ovate-lanceolate, or elliptic, 7-19 × 4-8(-10) cm, thinly leathery or papery, drying greenish or blackish brown, abaxially densely stellate tomentose, pilose, or glabrous, adaxially sparsely puberulent or nearly glabrous, base obtuse, rounded or shallowly cordate, sometimes oblique, apex acuminate or acute. Inflorescence cymose, corymbose, ca. 7 cm, hairy. Pedicels 8-11 mm, shorter than flowers. Calyx obconical, 5-8 mm, 5-lobed, lobes broadly ovate, apex acute. Petals 5, white or pink, linear-spatulate, 5-15 mm, puberulent adaxially. Androgynophore 1.2-3.5 cm. Ovary globose, 5-locular, densely hairy. Capsule pyriform or oblong-pyriform, 5-angled, 2.5-3.5(-5) cm, densely brownish puberulent. Seeds ca. 2.5 cm including wing. Fl. May-Jun.

Reevesia pubescens is sometimes included with R. wallichii R. Brown.

Valley forests, thickets, hillsides, slopes; 500-2500 m. Guangxi, S Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand].