This is a St Helena endemic species in an endemic genus. It forms a small, open tree similar in form to the Gumwood. The leaves are 50-75 mm long and spoon-shaped, with the petiole accounting for at least half the length; they are coarsely toothed, and when young are yellow green and shiny, but become dull green when mature. The flowering heads form in branched clusters near the ends of the branches and are either drooping or roughly horizontal; they are whitish yellow, ageing to brown, and are produced in February and March.
The Bastard Gumwood was originally an important component of the gumwood woodlands, especially on the drier sites between about 400 and 520 m. It declined rapidly after human settlement; in the first decade of the 19th century Burchell noted that the largest and most ancient trees were in Shark's Valley. One tree survived at Longwood until it was blown down in 1897, and the species was thought to be extinct until a single tree was found in 1982 by Stedson Stroud, on an inaccessible cliff between Dry Gut and Horse Pasture. Some young trees have now been propagated from this, but they are not setting seed.