a shrub or undershrub, 1 1/2–4 ft. high; branches ascending, dense, terete, leafy; young shoots silky-tomentose, shining with silvery-white hairs; bark dusky, somewhat glossy; leaves alternate, narrowly elliptic, narrowed more or less towards both ends, coriaceous, dark-green and glossy above, silky-tomentose beneath with persistent pale hairs, subsessile, entire, 1/3–1 1/8 in. long, 1/10– 3/8 in. broad; flowers hermaphrodite or subdiœcious, numerous, white, 1/4– 1/3 in. long; peduncles axillary, 1-flowered, pubescent, arching in fruit, about 1/4– 1/2 in. long, bibracteate above the middle; bracts linear, pubescent, deciduous; calyx very deeply 5-lobed, pubescent on both surfaces, pallid, about 1/5 in. long in flower, accrescent, more or less spreading and about 1/2 in. in diam. under the fruit; segments lanceolate, subacute, 1/5– 2/5 in. long; corolla deeply 5-lobed, somewhat pubescent outside, glabrous within; lobes ovate-oblong, obtuse, spreading or reflexed; stamens 10, erect, about 1/8 in. long or shorter in quasi-female flowers; filaments very short, glabrous, flattened; anthers hispid; ovary hirsute; styles 3–5, glabrous; fruit spheroidal or oblong, puberulous with very short inconspicuous hairs, splitting from the somewhat pointed apex, 1/2–1 in. long, 1/4– 2/5 in. thick, 1-celled, like a plum in colour, 1-seeded. null
