Shrub or small slender tree up to 4 m. tall; first-year branchlets fulvous-puberulous, second-year glabrous, grey-brown, slender, older branchlets not corky. Leaf-lamina up to 10 × 5 cm., more or less elliptic but tapering rapidly to each end, lower-surface quite glabrous except for a few hairs on the nerves, apex usually shortly acuminate, base cuneate; petiole up to 1·3 cm. long. Inflorescence a 3–7-flowered almost sessile axillary or terminal fascicle; bracts 3 mm. long, subulate; pedicels 4–10 mm. long. Flowers greenish-white, becoming yellow with age, fragrant, usually present with the leaves. Calyx up to 3 mm. long, with indistinct teeth, puberulous. Petals 15–22 × 3 mm., linear, minutely puberulous towards the apex outside, otherwise glabrous. Staminal tube 10–15 mm. long, distally expanded, bearded at the throat with long hairs arising from filaments, otherwise glabrous inside or minutely puberulous at the base; appendages fused almost to the apex and forming a frill about 1·5 mm. long beyond the insertion of the filaments, densely ciliate, irregularly lobed. Ovary 10-locular, glabrous; style 2–2·5 cm. long, glabrous or pilose at base; style-head ovoid-cylindric. Capsule 7 × 12 mm., depressed-globose, shallowly sulcate, leathery, glabrous; aril covering about half the seed.