An evergreen tree, 10—40 m tall, in cultivation often pruned to 3 m; trunk up to 75 cm in diameter, without buttresses; bark pale grey or silvery, smooth. Leaves alternate, distichous, simple, exstipulate; petiole slender, 1—2 cm long, narrowly grooved, glabrous; blade elliptical to ovate-oblong, 13—29 cm x 4—10 cm, base often oblique, rounded cordate, margin more or less undulating, apex acutely acuminate, membranous, midrib and lateral veins mostly whitish-pubescent on both sides, secondary veins in 8—9 pairs, clearly visible on both sides, often with small, hairy, pitted glands in vein axils. Inflorescence a raceme, 1—4 cm long, with 2—6 flowers on short, leafless, axillary shoots, dangling in clusters of 1—3 from the older branches behind the leaves; flowers 5—7.5 cm long, bisexual, green turning light dull yellow, overpoweringly fragrant when mature; pedicel 2—5 cm long; sepals 3, ovate, 5—7 mm x 5 mm, reflexed; petals 6, in 2 whorls of 3, linear-lanceolate, 3—9 cm x 5—16 mm, often curled or wavy, with purple brown spot at the base inside; stamens numerous, closely arranged, linear, 2—3 mm long, with a broad, cone-shaped appendix of the connective; staminodes absent; carpels many, with slender style and discoid stigma. Fruit pendulous, consisting of many (7—16) separate, globose-obovoid monocarps, about 2.5 cm x 1.5 cm on stalk 1—2 cm long; monocarp dark green, ripening blackish, 2—12-seeded, with seeds embedded in yellow oily pulp arranged in 2 rows. Seed flattened, ellipsoid, 9 mm x 6 mm x 2.5 mm, pale brown, surface pitted, hard, with a rudimentary aril.

PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation