Deciduous shrub or much branched small tree (0.9)1.5–6(13) m tall; branches thick and stiff; bark grey, flaking off to expose a brownish-pink or rusty-red underbark; young branches densely grey-pubescent.Leaves opposite; blades (1.5)5.3–21.5 × (0.5)1.6–12.5 cm, elliptic or oblong-elliptic, ± rounded or subacute at the apex, rounded to cuneate at the base, markedly discolorous, rather scabrid pubescent above, velvety grey or yellowish tomentose or pubescent beneath, very rarely glabrous; petiole 5–15 mm long; stipules thick, up to 9 mm long, triangular, joined to form a sheath at the base, grey tomentose outside, densely hairy inside, with a thick obtuse subulate apex 8–12 mm long, eventually deciduous.Inflorescences densely yellowish velvety pubescent, simply cymose or branched, axillary on the leafless nodes of older branches; cymes several-flowered; bracts 4–6 mm long, lanceolate or subulate; peduncles and secondary branches 10–20 mm long; pedicels very short, or up to 8 mm long.Calyx tube 4 × 4 mm, subcampanulate, densely tomentose; lobes erect, 1.5–5.5 mm long, narrowly lanceolate to triangular to oblong-lanceolate, densely tomentose.Corolla beaked, elongate, with divaricate tails at apex in bud; whitish or yellow-green, grey tomentose; tube 5 mm long, cylindric, with a ring of deflexed hairs inside; lobes reflexed, 20–25 mm long, linear-lanceolate, glabrous inside, tomentose outside, apiculate at the apex.Anthers 2.5–3 mm long, exserted for 5 mm.Style green, rather stout, exserted for up to 15 mm, constricted near the apex; pollen presenter 2–2.5 mm long, cylindric, smooth, 2-lobed at the apex.Fruit rather like a “medlar”, 2–4 × 1.7–2 cm, or the size of a peach (ex Zimbabwe label), rounded, compressed, didymous or oblique, crowned by the calyx limb, sparsely pubescent, with 1–2 pyrenes; pyrenes up to 21 × 9 mm, narrowly ellipsoid, with a woody wall 1.7 mm thick.
