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A shrub 6–12 ft. high; branchlets slender, twiggy, covered with rust-coloured scales when young. Leaves fragrant, subverticillate, lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, more or less narrowed to an obtuse or slightly emarginate apex, obtuse or subacute at the base, 1/2–3 inches long, 1/4–1 1/6 in. broad, rigidly chartaceous, entire, mostly very dark brown and always glabrous above when dry, covered below with silvery scales with yellow centres; lateral nerves 9–12 on each side, slightly raised above, not visible or only a little raised below; glands at the base absent; petiole up to 1 in. long, scaly; stipules minute. Flowers monœcious. Racemes very much abbreviated, giving the flowers a clustered appearance at the apex of each shoot. Male flowers: pedicel about 2 lin. long at the opening of the flower. Sepals ovate, 1 lin. long, 3/4 lin. broad, coriaceous, covered on the outside with numerous large overlapping orbicular scales, glabrous within except towards the puberulous margin. Petals oblong-lanceolate, rounded at the apex, 1 1/4 lin. long, 1/3 lin. broad, submembranous, glabrous on both sides, margin villous. Disk-glands very small. Stamens 15–18; filaments flattened below, sparingly pilose in the lower half. Receptacle pubescent. Female flowers: Sepals as in the males. Petals oblanceolate, as long as the sepals. Disk very thin, glabrous. Ovary densely covered with numerous large overlapping scales; styles bipartite to near the base; segments subterete, glabrous. Capsule trilobed, 1/3 in. long, covered with numerous overlapping scales. Seeds ellipsoid, brown, 1/4 in. long, 1/6 in. broad.