Understorey forest trees up to 6 m tall with red wood and a dark rough bark not peeling off; shrubby in open vegetation or reduced to soboliferous shrublets when exposed to fire and frost, 0,5-2 m tall. Branches and branchlets dark brown or grey, lenticellate; young twigs pale fawn coloured, the epidermis peeling off in small thin membranous white flakes. Galls often present, globose with rosulate, ovate, obtuse bracts. Leaves tardily deciduous, narÂrowly oblong, variable in size, 5-12 (-14) cm long, 1,5-2,5 cm broad, apex and base generÂally obtuse, margin serrulate, rarely subentire, midrib distinct, lateral veins at right angles to midrib, leathery, shortly petiolate; stipules inÂtrapetiolar, elongate-deltoid. Flowers fragrant, in compound, many- to few-flowered racemes or subumbellate, terminating short lateral spurs; pedicels up to 2,5 cm long, articulated in lower quarter. Sepals elliptic-convex, about 9 mm long, green, slightly larger in fruit, turning wine red. Petals broadly obovate, c. 15 mm long, clawed, yellow. Stamens c. 30, with filaments 3 mm long; anthers biporose, 2 mm long. Carpels 6-12, usually about 8, erect; styles fused, t
