Suffrutex with several sparsely branched stems 10–40 cm tall from a woody rootstock, the lateral branches often short or more or less suppressed; youngest parts densely hairy with pale ferruginous hairs but soon glabrescent, dark purple-brown and with minutely flaky bark.Leaves paired or appearing in whorls due to abbreviated branches, 1.6–11(15) × 0.3–3.7(5.5) cm, linear-oblong to oblong or ± oblanceolate, ± rounded to mostly acute at the apex, cuneate at the base, rather thick, very discolorous, drying green to dark brown above with scattered bristly yellow hairs, densely grey-white to buff velvety tomentose beneath with woolly hairs; venation distinctly impressed above in the mature leaves; petiole 2–8 mm long; stipules 1–5 mm long, ± triangular, joined at the base, the filiform appendages 3–6 mm long.Inflorescences with 5–7 flowers in congested dichasial cymes; peduncle 0–5 mm long; pedicels 0–3 mm long; bracts up to 5 × 2 mm, ovate-oblong.Calyx tube c. 2 mm long, campanulate, pubescent to densely hairy; lobes 3.5–6 mm long, oblong to linear-lanceolate, slightly pubescent to densely hairy.Corolla tailed at the apex in bud; tube 6 mm long, cylindrical, yellow hairy outside and with a ring of deflexed hairs within; lobes about 4 mm long, distinctly apiculate, the appendage about 1 mm long.Fruits about 12 mm in diameter, subglobose, very sparsely pubescent; pyrenes c. 7 mm long.
