Shrub, subscandent shrub or small spreading tree 1.8–15 m tall.Stems sometimes several, virgate with branching often horizontal; bark grey, brown or red-brown, more or less smooth or finely ridged; young shoots mostly dark plum-coloured and lenticellate, quite glabrous.Leaves 3–15(17) × 1.5–6(8) cm, elliptic, oblong, ovate or ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, distinctly acuminate at the apex, rounded to cuneate or occasionally subcordate at the base, often discolorous and venose beneath when dry, quite glabrous or rarely slightly pubescent beneath; lateral nerves in (6)7–8 main pairs; tertiary nerves finely reticulate; petiole 7–10(14) mm long; stipules with filiform part 3–9.5 mm long from a short broad base 1.5–2 mm long.Inflorescences typically short, 1–3.5 cm long including peduncle, fairly lax to very condensed, the rhachis pedicels and calyx tube almost glabrous to usually pubescent or densely shortly hairy; peduncle 5–10 mm long, similarly hairy, with paired bracts near the apex 3 × 2 mm long; pedicels 2–4 mm long, pubescent.Calyx tube 1.5 mm in diameter, subglobose, glabrescent to densely shortly hairy; lobes (1.2)3–7 mm long, oblong to linear, sometimes slightly spathulate, glabrous or ciliolate.Corolla distinctly apiculate at the apex but not tailed in bud; glabrous outside, greenish-white, or green to yellow; tube 4–5 mm long with a conspicuous tuft of hairs projecting from the throat; lobes 4–4.5 ´ 2 mm.Style 6–8 mm long; pollen presenter 1.2 mm long.Fruit turning brown, 1.7–2.2 × 1.4–2.2 cm, subglobose, or sometimes irregularly ellipsoid where only one pyrene has developed, glabrous; pyrenes 3–5, 9–17 × 4–6 mm.