Shrub or small tree (1–)3.5–7.5 m. tall, often thicket-forming by means of sucker shoots; older stems pale grey-brown or greyish white, brittle, minutely longitudinally sulcate, densely covered with small lenticels, the lower nodes bearing obcordate leaf-scars; young stems green with white lenticels; young buds in leaf-axils and at leafless nodes woolly. Leaves opposite or subopposite; blades elliptic or ovate, (1.3–)3.5–23.5 cm. long, (0.6–)1.4–14 cm. wide, shortly acutely acuminate at the apex, narrowly to broadly cuneate at the base, the margin entire but sometimes slightly undulate, glabrous; lateral nerves 4–5 pairs, arcuate; petiole 0.4–3(–5) cm. long. Male inflorescences ± umbel-like cymes, up to 8-flowered, in the axils of juvenile leaves; peduncle 0.4–5 cm. long; pedicels 0.2–1.8 cm. long. Male flowers: calyx ± 1–2 mm. tall; petals white or yellow-green, oblong or oblong-subspathulate, 4–5 mm. long, 2.5–3 mm. wide, rounded at the apex, slightly narrowed to the base, strongly reflexed, very slightly erose; stamens with filaments 1.2–1.5(–3) mm. long; anthers (1.6–)2.5–3 mm. long; rudimentary ovary 0.9–1.5 mm. long. Female flowers: calyx-tube 8 mm. long, slightly expanded below, cylindrical above, irregularly tuberculate, pedicel-like stipe l–4(–8) mm. long; lobes triangular, ± 0.5 mm. long; petals creamy, oblong, 3.5–4 mm. long, 2.5 mm. wide, rounded at the apex, slightly narrowed at the base, strongly reflexed, very slightly erose; staminodes ± 1 mm. long; style white, thick, 3–4(–6) mm. long, shortly 2(–3)-fid at the apex, crowned with the ovately cap-shaped stigmas 1.8–2.5 mm. long. Fruit flask-shaped, 1.5–3(–3.5) cm. long, 1–1.6 cm. wide, irregularly densely spinous-tuberculate or echinate and with smaller rounded tubercles on the widened part, the neck ± smooth, crowned with the persistent style. Seeds reddish or yellowish brown, (4–)5–11(–12), ± round, compressed, ± 5–6 mm. long, 5 mm. wide and 2.5–3.5 mm. thick.
