Trees to 35(-40) m tall; trunk to 1.5 m d.b.h.; crown broadly pyramidal, dense; long branchlets light yellow or light reddish brown, glaucous, initially pale brownish pub-escent, turning glabrous and grayish brown or blackish brown in 2nd year; short branchlets bearing rings of scale remnants; leaf cushions sparsely pilose. Leaves linear-oblanceolate, 1-2.5 cm × 0.7-1.1 mm, inconspicuously keeled abaxially, apex obtuse. Seed cones terminal, violet, maturing orange-brown tinged with purple, finally gray-brown, ovoid-globose, 1.5-3.5 × 1.5-2.5 cm. Seed scales 30-40, suborbicular, 1-1.3 × 1-1.3 cm, glabrous, margin sometimes undulate, apex entire or emarginate, usually strongly recurved. Bracts included, ligulate, ca. 1/2 as long as seed scales. Seeds brownish white mottled with red, ovoid-cuneate, slightly flattened, ca. 4 × 3 mm; wing reddish yellow tinged with brown, ovate-oblong, ca. 8 × 4 mm.