Shrub or small tree, usually 1.5-4 m tall; stems sometimes warty with lenticels; all parts except upper surface of older leaves sparsely to moderately villous (at least when young), the trichomes long, mostly erect and straight (crisp and crinkled when dry). Petioles 4-22 mm long; blades elliptic to elliptic-oblanceolate or elliptic-obovate, abruptly long-acuminate, unequal at base, one side 1-5 mm shorter and acute to obtuse, the longer side obtuse to subcordate, the blades 12-20 cm long, 4.5-8 (9.5) cm wide, the upper side smooth, sparsely villous when young, becoming smooth, glabrate, and often +/- rugulose in age (drying gray-green), the lower surface villous throughout but especially on the veins, the major lateral veins usually in 4 or 5 pairs arising mostly in basal half of blade. Spikes 7-9.5 cm long, pendent when juvenile, erect at anthesis, ca 3 mm thick at maturity; peduncles 8-15 mm long; bracts very densely fringed, obscuring apex and overlapping in flower, the cilia longer than width of bract proper. Fruits subcylindrical, truncate, +/- depressed medially, glabrous; styles usually 3, short and thick, deciduous. Croat 5179, 7733. Occasional, in the forest, apparently preferring ravines, most commonly a tree 3-3.5 m tall. Flowers in the dry season and the early rainy season. The fruits begin to mature by the late dry season, but are dispersed chiefly in the rainy season. Plants may go for a considerable portion of the rainy season in totally sterile condition, putting on the first juvenile spikes as early as September.