Monoecious or dioecious semi-prostrate shrub or small tree, 0.5–9 m. tall; bark black or brown, ± rough; twigs black or reddish brown, glandular, glabrescent, ridged and developing vertical fissures. Leaves simple, variable; blades oblanceolate or broadly to narrowly elliptic, (1–)4–13 cm. long, (0.4–)1.3–4.2 cm. wide, widest at or above the midpoint, obtuse and minutely apiculate at apex, gradually narrowed below the middle to a narrowly cuneate base; margin entire, recurved (in dried specimens); both surfaces glabrous and glandular, coated especially when young with viscid glandular exudate; lateral nerves 15–20(–30), often indistinct; petioles 0–2.5 mm. long. Flowers greenish yellow, unisexual or bisexual, in loose thyrsoid panicles at the ends of twigs; pedicels 0.8–1.5 cm. long in flower and fruit, glabrous and glandular. Male flowers: sepals 3–4, straw-coloured or greenish yellow, 2–2.5 mm. long, spreading; stamens 7(–9); anthers 2–3 mm. long; ovary rudiment minute. Female flowers: calyx green, cup-like but sepals free; staminodes lacking or with anthers ± 1.5 mm. long; ovary green, oblong in outline, flattened, bilobed, glandular; style 2–3-lobed, equalling the ovary; disk inconspicuous. Bisexual flowers similar: sepals 3–4, greenish yellow, ovate, 2–2.5 mm. long, spreading; anthers 1.6–1.9 mm. long. Fruit disk-shaped, the body 1.5–2.3 cm. long, 8–11 mm. wide, with an encircling papery venose wing 3–7 mm. wide or a few with 3(–4) locules and wings. Seeds 2 per locule, black, subspherical, or somewhat compressed with a raised dorsal rim, 2–3 mm. diameter, 1.5–3 mm. thick.