It is native to Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, DR Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo and Zaire.

[3] Achille Richard, the French botanist who first formally described the species, named it after its wavy (crispus in Latin) petals of its flowers.

Its brown to rust-colored bark has vertical cracks and peels off in long narrow strips.

Its elliptical to lance-shaped, leathery leaves are 7.2-25 by 2.5-8.5 centimeters with tapering tips that end in a blunt point and bases that are varyingly heat-shaped, rounded or wedge-shaped.

The upper surfaces of the leaves are glossy, grey, hairless and sometimes have a puckered appearance from their venation.

The fruit range from hairless to densely covered in velvety rust-colored hairs that are 0.1 millimeters long.

[6] Bioactive molecules extracted from its bark have been reported to have antiplasmodial activity in tests with Plasmodium falciparum.