Herb, shrub or small tree, up to 6 m high, the branchlets yellowish-stellate-tomentose. Leaves with the petiole rounded, 2-4 cm long, stellate-tomentose, the stipules early caducous; blade ovate, sometimes slightly asymmetric, deeply cordate at the base, gradually long-acuminate at the apex, crenulate-denticulate at the margin, 5-12.5 cm long and 2.5-7.5 cm broad, gradually smaller toward the apex of the stem and branchlets, chartaceous, concolorous or nearly so, usually 9-palmi-nerved, the upper surface more or less densely stellate-pubescent, becoming glabres-cent, the lower surface softly stellate-arachnoid and with the venation slightly prominent. Flowers at first axillary and solitary, later accompanied by a racemose flowering branchlet, forming altogether an ample, leafless, terminal, paniculiform inflorescence, the axes yellowish-stellate-tomentose; pedicel stout, articulate, up to 1.5 cm long but usually shorter along the racemose flowering branchlets, densely yellowish-stellate-tomentose; calyx broadly campanulate, ca 12 mm long, yellowish-stellate-velutinous, deeply lobed, the lobes reflexed at anthesis, ovate, acute, ca 10 mm long and 5 mm broad, accrescent; petals reflexed at anthesis, obovate, equalling more or less the calyx, white, villous at the insertion of the staminal tube and forming a ring of hairs around the tube; androecium ca 12 mm long, the staminal tube enlarged below, ca 8 mm long, glabrous, the filaments ca 4 mm long; styles ca 9 mm long, connate below the middle. Fruit broadly cylindric, umbillicate, ca 1 cm long and in diam, stellate-tomentellous to densely stellate-puberulus, the mericarps 8-14, acute at the apex, rounded at the base, rigid-chartaceous, 3-seeded; seeds ca 2-2.5 mm long, hispidulous.
Dry or moist, brushy slopes, sometimes in wet thickets or in hedges, at elevations from 1,000-2,300 metres.
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