Diffuse shrub or small tree, 2.5-7 m tall, or loosely twining vine; branches obtusely tetragonal or subterete, grayish-brown, shortly and densely cano-tomen-tose, glabrescent, the margin with numerous prominent lenticels; branchlets diffuse, obsoletely tetragonal or terete, somewhat compressed at the nodes, softly and densely fulvo-pubescent, the hairs mostly erect. Leaves opposite; chartaceous or when older subcoriaceous, ovate or oblong-ovate, 5-16 cm long and 2-9 cm wide, entire, acute or acuminate to short-cuspidate (very rarely rounded), basally acute or subcuneate, rarely obtusely rounded, sometimes slightly oblique, grayish-green, shiny, glabrate above except for the-midjrib and secondary veins, softly and densely cano-tomentose beneath, especially along the midrib and secondaries or in age rarely glabrate; petioles 4-13 mm long, densely fulvo-pubescent. In-florescences axillary cymes and terminal panicles; the cymes in the axils of the uppermost leaves, ca. '/2 as long as the subtending leaf, many-flowered, bracteate and bracteolate; the panicles terminal, bracteate, often embracing the uppermost cymes, the branches mostly trichotomous, often ascending, incanous and lanugi-nous-tomentose; peduncles 1-4.5 cm long, subappressed-pubescent with buff or fulvous hairs; pedicels slender, ca. 3 mm long, similar to the peduncles in pubes-cence; bracts foliaceous, scattered or in pairs at the base of the panicle-branches, oblong, stipitate, ca. 2.5 cm long and 1.5 cm wide, glabrous above or somewhat pubescent along the midrib, tomentose beneath; bractlets and prophylls narrowly linear or setaceous, ca. 1 mm long, tomentose. Flowers with the calyx obconic-campanulate, ca. 4 mm long and 2.5 mm wide, densely subappressed-pubescent with incanous or fulvous hairs, 4-dentate or 4-lobed, the lobes ovate, obtuse and mucronulate or submucronulate, broader than long; corolla white or pale-yellow, glabrous, infundibular, the tube cylindric, slender, 5-12 mm long, gradually
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ampliate above, the lobes 4, elliptic or oblong-elliptic, ca. 4 mm long and 2.5 mm wide, obtuse; stamens 4, inserted ca. 1.8 mm below the mouth of the corolla-tube, long-exserted in the staminate flowers or included in the pistillate, the filaments 0.5-7.5 mm long, glabrous or slightly pubescent below; pistil exserted in the pistillate flowers or included in the staminate, the style 22.5-8 mm long, the stigma branches 3-6.5 mm long, the ovary ovoid, flattened, about 0.9 mm long and 1 mm wide, glabrous. Fruit obovoid, subtetragonal, flattened at both ends, 8-10 mm long and 6-8 mm wide, yellow, roughened, slightly or greatly inclosed by the fruiting-calyx; fruiting-calyx cupuliform, greatly enlarged and indurated, ca. 1 cm wide, roughened, tomentose, irregularly and shallowly lobed.
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