Description from Flora of China
Trees 10-15 m tall. Branchlets of current year sulcate; branchlets and inflorescences densely tawny to grayish brown tomentose. Petiole 2-3 cm; leaf blade elliptic to ovate-elliptic, 12-18 × 4-8 cm, thickly leathery, abaxially covered with ± loose, lamellate, waxy scalelike trichomes, adaxially tomentose and with pulveraceous scalelike trichomes when young, base broadly cuneate, margin entire, apex acute to narrowly acuminate; secondary veins 12-16 on each side of midvein, slightly impressed adaxially, abruptly curving apically near margin but not fusing; tertiary veins abaxially usually conspicuous, subparallel. Male inflorescences solitary in axils of leaves or 3 in a panicle. Cupule globose, 2-2.5 cm in diam., usually completely enclosing nut; bracts of young cupules linear, 3-6 mm, slightly incurved, cross section terete to nearly so, grayish puberulent, wall ca. 1 mm thick; bracts of mature cupules reduced to scars or apical ones to shortly linear scales. Nut subglobose, 1.6-2.2 × 1.6-2 cm, densely covered with tawny appressed minute hairs; scar at most covering ca. 1/4 of nut, convex. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Aug-Oct of following year.
* Mixed mesophytic forests; 300-1000 m. SW Fujian, Guangdong, S Guizhou, SW Hunan