I. Friis (2006) Ebenaceae Flora of Somalia 3: 6-11
Plants small deciduous trees or shrubs, 2-10 m tall; bark grey or brown, smooth or with close and shallow longitudinal fissures; young shoots with pale, reddish brown pubescence. Leaves: petioles 1.4-5 mm long, glabrescent; blades 5.5-12 cm long, 3-6.5 cm wide, obovate, somewhat leathery, often red when young, drying pale green or brown with pale yellow veins visible on both surfaces, bases cuneate to truncate, tips shortly cuspidate, lateral veins in 6-9 pairs, prominent on the lower surafacea, teritay veins more or less ladderlike, closely reticulate, prominent on both surfaces but more so on the lower surface, lower surfaces densely setulose on the midrib, sparsely so elsewhere; young leaves usually velvety on both surfaces; mature leaves somtimes entirely glabrous. Male flowers (1-)3(-7) , in open cymes borne towards the base of of the current year's shoots, in the axils of fallen reduced leaves and the first-formed foliage leaves; peduncles about 6 mm long; pedicels 1-3 mm long, fulvous-tomentose; calyces about 2.5 mm long, strigulose tomentellous outside, glabrous insides; corollas aubritate, about 7 mm long, strigulose on midpetaline lines but otherwise glabrous.