Perennial shrub, growing in forest or under tree-shade; stems 3–6 ft. high, terete, reddish-brown with thin separable bark and about 1/4 in. thick, erect or ascending with long slender erect branches which are herbaceous, at any rate in the upper part, and hirtellous or pubescent, lower nodes bare. Leaves long- to shorter-stalked, ovate, ovate-elliptic, sometimes roundly ovate, acuminate, base cuneate to rounded, rarely truncate, entire, the rest of the margin crenate-serrate, 2–4 1/2 in. long, 1 1/4–2 3/4 in. wide, 3-nerved, the lateral nerves passing well above the middle generally into the upper third of the blade, with two upper lateral nerves on each side; upper face sparsely hispidly hairy and dotted with whitish cystoliths, more or less pubescent beneath especially on the somewhat prominent slender nerves; petiole slender, pubescent, generally between 3/4 and 2 in. long. Stipules brown, glumaceous, triangular-ovate to lanceolate, acuminate, 3–5 lin. long, with long hairs on the well-marked midrib and margin, persistent and forming an involucre for the axillary inflorescence. Flower-clusters 2–3 lin. in diam., consisting of numerous short-stalked male and a few sessile female. Male perianth campanulate, about 1 lin. long, divided to about the middle into 4 (sometimes 3) ovate shortly mucronate-acuminate segments, puberulous on the back. Stigma slender, longer than the perianth, soon falling. Fruiting perianth broadly ovoid, acute, a little over 1 lin. long, puberulous especially in the upper part, longitudinally nerved, closely investing the white polished achene.