Shrub or small to medium-sized tree (1) 2–8 (16) m. tall, sometimes weak-stemmed and scrambling; first-year branchlets densely puberulous, second-year almost glabrous, reddish-brown or purple-brown, often with conspicuous white or pale brown lenticels. Leaf-lamina up to 10 × 7 cm., mostly obovate or obovate-elliptic, lower surface shortly pubescent and with tufts of hairs in axils of secondary nerves, apex rounded to apiculate, base cuneate; petiole up to 1·8 cm. long. Inflorescence a terminal or axillary congested cyme or false raceme; peduncle 3–4·5 cm. long, stout; bracts usually 3–4 to each flower, the longest up to 1·5 cm. long, foliaceous; pedicels 1–1·5 cm. long. Calyx 5–8 mm. long, deeply lobed, tomentellous. Petals 12–14 × 4 mm., creamy white tinged with green, becoming yellowish with age, spathulate, pubescent outside. Staminal tube 1·2–1·4 cm. long, distally expanded, bearded at the throat with long hairs arising mostly from the filaments and a few from the appendages, otherwise glabrous inside; appendages irregularly 1–3-lobed, alternate with or opposite the anthers, fused in lower half to form a frill continuing the staminal tube beyond insertion of filaments. Ovary 10–12-locular, densely pilose; style 1·5–2·2 cm. long, pilose at base; style-head broadly ovoid-cylindric. Capsule 6 × 10 mm., depressed-globose, shallowly sulcate, woody, puberulous; aril covering half the seed.