A shrub or small tree up to 8(13) m. high. Twigs densely covered with a rusty tomentum when young, becoming dark purplish brown and finally greyish and more or less glabrous. Leaves opposite, up to 10 × 5·5 cm., simple, ovate (elliptic), coriaceous. Margins ± regularly serrate in the apical 1/2, the serrations becoming reduced in the basal 1/2 to subentire (very rarely the whole margin may be subentire); apex rounded to acute, occasionally with a small mucro; base rounded to cuneate, rarely slightly oblique. Upper surface of the lamina glossy, glabrous but with some hairs along the main vein and some laterals; lower surface densely rusty tomentose when young becoming ± glabrous (apart from the veins) with maturity. Venation penninerved, regular and conspicuous; petioles up to 2·5 cm. long, tomentose when young, becoming less so with age. Inflorescence of terminal panicles, the branches with a dense yellowish-brown tomentum. Bracts obvious, linear-lanceolate, tomentose, subtending the opposite primary branches of the panicle. Flowers sessile to very shortly pedicellate; calyx pubescent, adnate to the ovary but with 4 broadly triangular free teeth; petals 4, 1–1·5 × 0·75 mm., ovate, glabrous within. Stamens 4, alternating with and slightly shorter than the petals. Ovary inferior, turbinate, disk slightly conical, pubescent; style short with stigma with 4 short lobes. Fruit drupaceous, 5–7 × 3–5 mm., subglobose to ovoid, crowned with the remains of the calyx and style, 4-locular with 1 seed in each loculus.
