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Shrub up to c. 2 m. high but usually smaller, sometimes a rhizomatous shrublet with only leaves and flowers appearing above ground, evergreen or deciduous, with bark rough, grey-brown; branches spreading or ascending from stiff erect shoots, purplish or brown and often with prominent lenticels at first, becoming greyish-white, sometimes peeling. Leaves petiolate; lamina 6·8–18·8 (24·6) × 2–4·7 (7) cm., oblanceolate to narrowly obovate, acute to shortly acuminate (more rarely obtuse) at the apex, with margin densely serrulate, cuneate to rounded at the base, ± coriaceous, with main lateral nerves scarcely more prominent than subsidiary ones and densely reticulate tertiary venation prominent above but almost plane below; petiole 1–3 mm. long, stout or swollen. Flowers (2) 3–9 (14), in short axillary simple or compound racemes or fascicles, more rarely in condensed panicles; pedicels 1·3–4 cm. long in fruit, articulated in the lower 1/3. Sepals 12–20 (25) mm. long in flower, elliptic to narrowly ovate, rounded or obtuse, becoming red, flat or slightly convex at the base only, 16–26 mm. long and eventually spreading but not navicular in fruit. Petals bright yellow to orange-yellow, sometimes dark-veined, (16) 18–28 × (9) 11–18 mm., elliptic or obovate to orbicular, unguiculate. Stamens with anthers (4–5) 5–7 mm. long, equalling or twice as long as the filaments, straight, dehiscing by apical pores. Carpels 5, with styles free at the apex and recurved; stigmas capitate. Drupelets 10–13 x 6–9 mm., flattened-cylindric, inserted near the base; embryo straight.