Shrubs or trees, 3-8 m tall. Year-old branchlets grayish white; current year branchlets reddish brown, glabrous. Petiole 1-1.5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade elliptic to oblong-elliptic, 7-13 × 3-6 cm, leathery to thickly leathery, abaxially pale green to yellowish green, adaxially green, shiny, and becoming yellowish green when dry, both surfaces glabrous, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially level or slightly raised, secondary veins 7 or 8 on each side of midvein and slightly raised on both surfaces, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin serrulate, apex acute to acuminate. Flowers solitary or paired, subterminal or axillary, 7-10 cm in diam., subsessile. Bracteoles and sepals 9-11, brown at anthesis; outer 4 bracteoles and sepals semiorbicular, 4-8 mm; inner 5 or 6 bracteoles and sepals ± persistent in young fruit, orbicular, 2-2.5 cm in diam., outside silvery gray villous, inside silvery sericeous, margin membranous. Petals 6-8, roseate or rarely white, broadly obovate, 4-6 × 3-4.5 cm, apex emarginate; inner petals basally connate for 5-8 mm. Stamens 2.5-3 cm, glabrous; outer filament whorl basally connate for 5-10 mm. Ovary ovoid, ca. 2 mm, glabrous, 3-loculed but sometimes to 5-loculed in cultivation; style ca. 2.5 cm, glabrous, apically 3-lobed. Capsule globose, 4-7.5 cm in diam., 3-loculed with 3-8 seeds per locule; pericarp to 1 cm thick, woody, splitting into 3 valves. Seeds brown, glabrous. Fl. Nov-Dec, fr. Oct. 2n = 30*, 90*.
● Forests, thickets; 500-1300 m. Anhui, N Fujian, E Hunan, E and W Jiangxi, Zhejiang.