Trees up to 50 m tall and 50-70(-200) cm dbh, with straight clear bole of up to 20 m and often a dome-shaped crown. Branches abundant, spreading, the lower ones often pendulous. Fruiting branches slightly quadrangular. Bark red-brown and rugose. Inner bark orange, with brownish resin. Leaves of primary shoots imbricate; leaves of juvenile foliage shoots distichous, nearly linear, (6-)10-17 mm long by 1.2-2.2 mm wide at the centre of a shoot, gradually losing the distichous habit as the tree matures, but shoots with more or less bilaterally flattened leaves distinctly longer in the middle of the shoot almost always present on even the oldest trees. Terminal shoots on young plants often elongated whip-like up to 20 cm. Leaves on older trees eventually becoming mostly scale-like, imbricate, distinctly keeled on the dorsal side, long-triangular, 1-3 by 0.4-0.6 mm. Involucral leaves becoming spreading, acicular, 2.5-4 mm long, rarely to 5 mm. Male cone axillary, 1 cm long. Female cones solitary or grouped in 2 at the tip of twigs, but only one fertile, ripe receptacle red. Seed ovoid, 0.5-0.6 cm long, glossy, red when mature.

Dacrycarpus imbricatus (Blume)