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Shrub or small tree, deciduous and often flowering when leafless, glabrous save for inflorescence which bears simple hairs. Flowers hermaphrodite, scented, solitary or in fascicles on leafy shoots or mostly on the older branches, pedicellate; buds subglobose, with prominent angles at sepal junctions; bracteoles ± 10, biseriate, tightly imbricate, pubescent and ciliate, persistent. Sepals 3, valvate, free, enclosing the petals in bud, rather thick, densely covered with brown hairs. Petals 6, imbricate above, open at the base, in 2 whorls of 3, subequal, conspicuously clawed, the inner with a conspicuous brush of fleshy brown setiform processes borne on a thick ridge at the junction of the lamina and the claw; petals and stamens cohering together so that all are removable together. Receptacle flat in staminal area but excavated beneath the carpels. Stamens very numerous (several hundred),oblong, the connective not produced at the apex, obtuse. Carpels 10–15 (–18), free, 4–6(–11)-ovulate, pilose; style cylindrical, slightly curved; stigma minute. Monocarps ± fusiform, narrowed at both ends but scarcely stipitate. Seeds ± vertical, overlapping.