A small, several-stemmed scrambling shrub or slender tree up to 6 m high; bark smooth, pale grey.Twigs green at first and shiny, later becoming brownish or purplish-grey.Young shoots densely fulvous-pubescent.Petioles 0.5–1 cm long, 1–3 mm thick.Leaf blades 2–21 × 0.5–8 cm, elliptic-oblanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, obtuse or acuminate, mucronate, asymmetrically rounded-cuneate at the base, undulate on the margins, chartaceous to thinly coriaceous, sparingly pubescent along the margin and the midrib and lateral nerves beneath, otherwise glabrous, deep glossy green above, paler and duller beneath; lateral nerves in 6–12 pairs, impressed above, fairly prominent beneath, strongly brochidodromous, tertiary nerves prominently reticulate above and beneath.Stipules 0.5–1 cm long, lanceolate to setaceous, acute, pubescent, green, subpersistent.Male spikes 0.5–4.5 cm long, amentiform, pendulous, shortly pedunculate; axis densely pubescent.Male flowers: sepals 1.5 × 1 mm, ovate, subacute, pubescent towards the apex without, glabrous within, greenish; petals, when present, 0.5 mm long, subulate; disk glands 2-lobed, contiguous, apically setose; stamens 2 mm long, filaments uniformly slender, anthers 0.5 mm long; pistillode 0.5 mm high, cylindric, pubescent, 3-lobulate at the apex, lobules glabrous.Female racemes 6–17 cm long, extending to 25 cm in fruit.Female flowers: pedicels 1–3 mm long, extending to up to 1.5 cm in fruit and becoming sharply decurved at the tip; sepals ± as in the male; petals, when present, 1 mm long, subulate, acute or linear, 2-lobed; disk 3 mm in diameter, glabrous; ovary 2.5 × 3 mm, 3-lobed to subglobose, densely fulvous-pubescent, grey-green; styles 1.5–2 mm long, sparingly pubescent, greenish, stigmas glabrous, yellowish.Fruit 6–7 × 8–11 mm, depressed, rounded-3-lobed, sparingly appressed-pubescent, pale grey-green, sometimes pinkish-tinged.Seeds 4–5 × 3–4 mm, ovoid-subglobose, smooth, shiny, dark green at first, later becoming dark brown; hilum and caruncle tawny-brownish.