Evergreen tree or large shrubs, branchlets pubescent with dusty brown bark; leaves alternate, enveloped in convolute stipules, petiolate (2-4 cm), simple, evergreen, ovate lanceolate, thin, shining above, pale, glabrous or puberulous beneath; peduncle short, buds silky, flowers solitary, axillary, showy, very fragrant, golden yellow, 5-8 cm across, actinomorphic, bisexual; sepals oblong, acute; petals usually 15-21 in many whorls of 3, linear-lanceolate, fleshy; stamens numerous, in many series, free; anthers linear, adnate, introrse; carpels many, subsessile, pubescent, ovaries cohering in ovoid head, loosely and spirally arranged in loose spikes; fruits 5-10 cm long, lax or dense, elongate spike of coriaceous, ovoid to ellipsoid, dorsally dehiscing carpels, woody; seeds pendulous, brown, angular with pink, fleshy aril.