large shrub or small tree, 16–25 ft. high; twigs angular, covered with silvery and rusty scales with or without an accompanying sparse stellate-pubescence; leaves fragrant, alternate, distinctly to long-petioled, firmly membranous, penninerved, elliptic-lanceolate, obtuse or slightly narrowed to the apex, emarginate, base narrow shallowly cordate, margin entire, 2 1/2–4 1/2 in. long, 3/4–1 3/4 in. wide, green, glabrous, dull above, densely clothed with silvery and a few rusty scales beneath; lateral nerves 12–14 a side, slightly impressed above and raised beneath; petiole 1/2–1 1/2 in. long, densely silvery lepidote and sometimes also sparingly stellate-pubescent with 2 usually distinctly stipitate glands underneath at point of attach-ment with blade; stipules subulate, usually short, occasionally very long, scaly; racemes androgynous, 1–4 in. long, at ends of shoots; rhachis densely silvery and rusty scaly; bracts subulate-lanceolate, scaly; male pedicels 1–2 lin. long, densely scaly; sepals ovate, obtuse, 1 1/4 lin. long, coriaceous, densely scaly outside, closely puberulous within; petals ovate, as large as sepals, scaly externally, margins villous, sparingly pilose within; disc-glands thick, glabrous; stamens 15–20, filaments thinly pubescent below; receptacle pilose; female sepals as in male; petals oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, scaly outside, hairy within; disc minute; ovary densely clad with fringed scales; styles spreading, 4–6-partite; segments 1–3-fid, glabrous above, puberulous on back below; capsule distinctly 3-lobed, 2/5 in. long, densely scaly. null
