a shrub or small tree, with the habit of a laurel and the branches usually subferruginously pubescent, sometimes subglabrous, or even subglaucous, leafy, 2–15 ft. high; leaves alternate or rarely subopposite, oval, elliptic or oblong, usually rounded or obtusely narrowed at the apex, but sometimes apiculate, narrowed or rounded at the base, coriaceous, wavy or flat at the narrowly revolute margins, entire, evergreen, 1–4 in. long, 1/3–1 3/8 in. broad; venation not very conspicuous; petioles 1/6– 1/2 in. long; flowers usually diœcious, occasionally hermaphrodite, 4–6-merous, greenish or sulphur-yellow, 1/6– 1/4 in. long; cymes axillary, usually paniculate, 10–30-flowered, 1–1 2/3 in. long, pubescent, subsessile; pedicels spreading or drooping, shorter than or as long as the flowers; bracts small, pointed, deciduous; calyx campanulate or hemispherical, 1/12– 1/10 in. long, pubescent, cleft about half-way down; lobes ovate or deltoid, obtuse; corolla about twice as long as the calyx, deeply lobed; lobes oval or oblong, glabrous, or with a few hairs; stamens erect, shorter than the corolla, four times as many as the corolla-lobes in the male or hermaphrodite flowers, none in the female; anthers pallid, dehiscing on each side from the apex, subglabrous or hairy above; filaments glabrous, short, and inserted in pairs at the base of the corolla or around the ovary; ovary in the male flowers abortive, in the female or hermaphrodite flowers globose, densely hairy, 2- or 4-celled; styles 2, short, rather thick, spreading, glabrous or with a few hairs; stigmas obtuse; ovules solitary; fruit at first usually ferruginously pubescent, subsequently dusky and glabrate, globose, 1/3 in. in diam., 1-celled, 1-seeded; embryo curved and tending to be incumbent. null
