Shrub up to 3 m. tall, sometimes scrambling; first-year branchlets puberulous with spreading hairs, second-year more sparsely so, reddish-brown or grey. Leaves mostly in fascicles; lamina very variable in shape and size, up to 5 × 2·5 cm., usually smaller, oblanceolate to narrowly obovate, lower surface glabrous, apex subacuminate to emarginate, sometimes shallowly 3-lobed, base decurrent almost to the base of the petiole; petiole very short or absent. Inflorescence axillary, 1–3-flowered; peduncles 5–8 mm. long; bracts very small, 1 mm. long, subulate. Flowers pure white. Calyx 3–5 mm. long, lobes pubescent. Petals 3–3·6 × 0·5 cm., linear to linear-spathulate, glabrous outside. Staminal tube 2·5–3·2 cm. long, cylindric, glabrous inside; appendages in pairs, alternating with the anthers, 1·5–2 mm. long, glabrous outside; filaments fused beyond the insertion of the appendages to form a short frill continuing the staminal tube. Ovary 5-locular, glabrous; style 2·7–3·3 cm. long; style-head broadly obovoid-cylindric, widest at the apex, exserted up to 3 mm. beyond the base of the staminal appendages. Capsule 5 × 10–13 mm., depressed-globose, shallowly sulcate, leathery, glabrous; aril vestigial, confined to the adaxial surface; testa red.