A tall, evergreen, forest tree to 25 m, with a dense, rounded crown. Bark smooth and pale becoming dark and rough. Leaves lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, glossy dark green, leathery, with wavy margins. Young growth is reddish. Flowers are scented, creamy white or pale pink, in dense, pendent spikes, in summer. Fruit is a brown nutlet, covered in long white to yellowish hair, in late summer and winter.