An evergreen tree, with straggling appearance and drooping branches, up to 30 m tall and 65 cm in trunk diameter. Trunk often irregularly fluted, sometimes with stout buttresses, 1—3 m long; bark dark brown, slightly flaky, inner bark yielding a red exudate. Leaves alternate, simple; petiole 0.5—1.5 cm long; stipules small; blade oblong, 10—50 cm x 4—18 cm, thinly leathery, shiny yellowish-green, pink when young, glabrous, drooping. Inflorescence an axillary spike, 1—17 cm long, simple or 2—5-fid; flowers small, 5-merous, pungently fragrant; calyx tubular with 2—5 teeth; petals 5, subequal, 1—1.5 cm long, white or yellow, apex recurved; stamens 10 in 2 series, alternately long and short. Pod very variable, 1-seeded, flattened, reniform or wedge-shaped, 5—10 cm x 5—8 cm x 4—5 cm, indehiscent, keeled, ribbed or smooth, mostly densely, finely pubescent when young. Seed up to 8 cm long, with very hard seed-coat and white endosperm.

Antihemorrhagic (boiled seeds).

Moorea Research Station: U.C. Berkeley

Eases labor pain and used for a variety of skin ailments (boiled seeds); taken internally as a remedy against intestinal disorders (tannin from the bark).