A large leafy tree, 10—30 m tall; bole 60—100 cm in diameter, bark greyish, shallowly sculptured and with pustular lenticels; each node with 2 serial buds; terminal vegetative bud ellipsoid, slightly flattened. Leaves opposite, simple, entire, oblong-ovate, 8—15 cm x 4—10 cm, base broadly rounded, apex abruptly acuminate, glabrous or veins beneath puberulous, veins 12—15 pairs; petiole (1—)2—5 cm long; stipules lanceolate, 2 cm long, pubescent, with 9 veins, inside with colleters at base. Inflorescence terminally on lateral branches, composed of 3(—7) globose heads, 1 head subsessile between 2 others on long peduncles, 5 cm long; head 2.5 cm in diameter when flowering, 1.5 cm when fruiting, receptacle hairy, leafy bracts up to 4 cm long, petiolate, interfloral bracteoles up to 3.5 mm long. Flowers bisexual, 5-merous, sessile; calyx cup-shaped, up to 2 mm long, 5-lobed; corolla yellowish-white turning deep yellow, funnel-shaped, 5—8 mm long, lobes 5, 3 mm long, thickened at apex, margin revolute, a conspicuous ring of hairs inside at base of lobes; stamens 5, on intersection with lobes, anthers lanceolate, cordate, conspicuously protruding from the corolla; ovary inferior, 2-celled, style exserted, 13 mm long, stigma rounded, 2 mm long. Fruit composed of 2 cocci, exocarp thin, splitting loculicidally along its length, 10-ridged. Seeds numerous, shortly winged on 2 sides, lower wing shortly bifid or notched.

Used as a local anaesthetic (aerial parts); antihypertensive (plant); analgesic and stimulant (leaves).

PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation

Leaves are taken for diarrhoea, dysentery or stomach-ache; also chewed as a substitute for opium and to treat opium and opiate addiction. Pounded leaves are used to poultice wounds, or to expel worms from children. The leaves, heated with those of Blumea balsamifera (L.) DC., Morinda citrifolia L. and Oroxylum indicum (L.) Kurz, are applied hot to an enlarged spleen. The plant is used for chronic cases of hypertension and diabetes mellitus.