Shrub or small bushy tree up to 8 m. high, or a rhizomatous suffrutex or virgate shrub 0·3–3 m. high. Young shoots densely puberulous to glabrous, except for peltate, usually rusty, scales. Leaves alternate or subopposite; petiole up to 0·2 cm. long; lamina very variable, mostly obovate to oblanceolate or linear, margin often crenulate, usually revolute, or markedly undulate (subsp. ovata); lower surface always with peltate, usually rusty, scales, at least when young, nearly always (except in subsp. linearis sens. strict) also sparsely to densely puberulous with spreading crispate hairs, or tomentose (subsp. ovata when young), often glabrescent; venation prominent and reticulate, especially on upper surface, very rarely impressed above. Inflorescence, solitary, axillary, unbranched, up to 3 cm. long, always with peltate scales, and (except in subsp. linearis sens. strict) sparsely to densely puberulous. Male flowers c. 0·25 cm. long. Calyx patelliform, with very short, broadly deltate teeth. Corolla lobed to beyond the middle, glabrous except for the sparsely strigulose mid–petaline lines. Stamens 10–18, mostly in pairs; anthers strigulose. Pistillode minute, setulose, with or without well–developed stylodes. Female flowers with c. 8 filiform, setulose staminodes or staminodes absent. Ovary densely strigose. Fruit c. 0·6 cm. diameter, sparsely strigose, glabrescent. Chromosome number: 2n = 30.