Shrub or low tree, 2-12 m tall, sometimes appearing herbaceous when young; branches stout, strict, acutely tetragonal, greatly flattened and ampliate at the nodes, sulcate along the sides, shiny, minutely puberulent or glabrate; branchlets slender, obscurely or obtusely tetragonal, shallowly sulcate along the sides, decus-sately ampliate at the nodes, yellowish, shiny, subglabrate. Leaves opposite; thin-membranous or chartaceous, usually fragile when dry, oval or somewhat obovate, 5-10 cm long, 2-4 cm wide, apically abruptly contracted and long-acuminate or sometimes rounded and bluntly acute, entire, basally abruptly and shortly produced into the petiole, light-green shiny and glabrate on both surfaces; secondary veins slender, 7-10 pairs, strongly arcuate-ascending, slightly prominu-lent beneath, minor veins delicate and inconspicuous; petioles slender, weak, 8-12 mm long, basally annulate, minutely puberulent. Inflorescences axillary, solitary, opposite, cymes ca. 1/3 as long as the subtending leaves, 2-4 cm wide, trichotomous, loose and spreading, bracteate, laxly many-flowered; peduncles slender, 1.5-3 cm long, minutely puberulent or cinereous; pedicels slender, ca. 2 mm long, minutely puberulent; bractlets and prophylls subulate, 1-2 mm long, puberulent. Flowers faintly fragrant; calyx light-green and membranous, cam-panulate or turbinate, ca. 2.5 mm long and 2 mm wide, glabrate, lax around the corolla-tube, shallowly 4-lobed, the lobes erect, broadly ovate, rounded; corolla pale-yellow, cream-color, or yellowish-white to white, infundibular, the tube nar-rowly cylindric, 5-8 mm long, the lobes 4, erect, broadly ovate-lingulate, rounded; ca. 3 mm long and 2.6 mm wide, stamens 4, inserted ca. 1 mm below the mouth of the corolla-tube, included in pistillate or long-exserted in staminate flowers, the filaments 2-7 mm long, glabrous; pistil included in staminate flowers, the style ca. 2 mm long, glabrous, the stigma branches 1-3 mm long, ovary rotund, ca. 0.2 mm long and wide, yellowish, glabrous; fruit ca. 5 mm long and 6 mm wide, orange or red, distinctly 4-lobed, roughened and drying black, very shallowly invested by the fruiting-calyx; seeds 3 or 4.
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