Trees to 50 m tall and 250 cm dbh, with a straight round trunk and short, massive primary branches. Bark on young trees dark grey and smooth, becoming longitudinally fissured on old trees. Branchlets stout, yellow-grey to yellow-brown, shiny, ridged between leaf scars, glabrous or puberulent; leaf scars round with a light center. Vegetative buds conical or ovoid, 10 × 6 mm or larger on some leading shoots, resinous; bud scales triangular to ovate, red-brown, persistent. Leaves ± pectinately arranged in 2 lateral sets, dark green adaxially, linear, flattened, 1.5-4.8 cm × 2.5-3 mm, twisted at base, grooved above; stomata in two broad bands divided by a midrib below; resin canals 2, marginal or median on cone-bearing branchlets, apex variable. Pollen cones lateral, 10 mm long. Seed cones lateral, erect on short peduncles, green, ripening brown, cylindric or ovoid-cylindric, 7-10 × 3-4 cm, leaving a persistent, conical, dark brown axil. Seeds brown, obovoid, 8-10 × 5 mm, with a pale brown cuneate 20 × 10 mm wing.