Shrub or tree (1.5–)3–12 m tall with smooth greybrown sometimes flaking bark; slash meat-red, soft and granular; branches densely lenticellate, purplish or dark brown (rarely whitish). Leaves oblanceolate, oblong-oblanceolate or elliptic, 4–13 cm long, 1.5–4.5 cm wide, ± acuminate to a narrowly rounded tip or rounded at the apex, cuneate at the base, densely curved-serrulate or crenulate at the margin, fairly thin; lateral veins ± 30 with densely reticulate tertiary venation prominent on both surfaces but less so beneath; petiole 2.5–5(–8) mm long, slender, channelled above. Flowers 2–6(–8), pseudo-umbellate or with rhachis up to 4 mm long; pedicels 0.8–3.5 cm long, jointed at or very near the base. Sepals oblong-elliptic, 4–6(–8) mm long, 2–2.5 wide in flower, rounded at the apex, turning scarlet in fruit and enlarging to 6–14(–18) mm long, 3–5.5 mm wide. Petals white to lemon-yellow, obovate, 7–13 mm long, 3–7 mm wide. Anthers orange, 1–1.5(–2) mm long, about 1/2 as long as the filaments, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Carpels (5–)6–8 with styles completely united; stigma globose or slightly 5–8-lobed. Drupelets black, subglobose to subreniform, 6–7 mm diameter, inserted below their centre.
