Shrub or small tree 1–7 m high, sometimes with branches climbing to 10 m high, deciduous, the flowers appearing before or with the leaves; trunk to 6 cm in diameter; branches slightly fleshy, smooth or sulcate, densely puberulous; latex clear, white or yellow. Leaves opposite, petiolate, blade silvery abaxially, (broadly) ovate or elliptic, 6–24 cm long, 4–18 cm wide, base cuneate or rounded, rarely subcordate, apex acute or acuminate, pubescent and glabrescent above, tomentose beneath; petiole 1–10 mm long. Inflorescence on leafless shoots, apparently axillary, rarely in forks, 1–12-flowered, congested, densely pubescent in all parts; pedicels 1–8 mm long. Flowers fragrant, white turning yellow and then red; sepals ovate, 11–25 mm long, acute; corolla tube 17–26 mm long, corolla lobes ovate, 7–15 mm long, 4.5–10 mm wide, narrowing gradually into filiform tails 9–17 cm long, corona lobes 2–7 mm long. Fruit pale brown, mericarps ± opposite-divergent, narrowly ellipsoid, 20–38 cm long, 1.5–3.2 cm in diameter, tapering to an obtuse apex or a knob, densely shaggy with villous protuberances 4–18 mm long; seeds 11–24 mm long, densely pubescent, with a stalked coma 8–17 cm long. Fig. 27 (p. 81).
