Timber yielding. The bark and flowers are charred and combined with the glands of Mallotus philippensis in the treatment of smallpox in order to cause suppuration. 

Trees, to 18 m high, bark surface brown mottled with green and white. Leaves simple, alternate, distichous, rectangular-oblong, margin entire, glabrous above, silvery pubescent beneath. Flowers bisexual, white, axillary, solitary or geminate. Calyx tubular; lobes 10-13. Petals 5, oblong, white, deciduous. Staminal column adnate to the gynophore. Ovary superior, 5-celled, ovules many. Fruit a capsule, oblong, 5-angled, smooth, winged at one end.