Shrubs 2-3.5 m tall; branchlets, petioles, and cymes with brownish stellate hairs. Petiole 5-10 mm; leaf blade ovate-elliptic to ovate, 3-6 X 2-3 cm, abaxially with dense gray stellate hairs and yellow glands, adaxially green-black when dry and glabrous, base broadly cuneate, margin entire or sparsely dentate, apex acute to acuminate. Cymes 1-1.5 cm across; peduncle equal or longer than petioles; bracts linear. Calyx cup-shaped, ca. 1 mm, truncate to minutely 4-dentate, outside with sparse stellate hairs. Corolla purple to red, ca. 3 mm, outside with a few stellate hairs. Fruit pinkish purple, oblong, puberulent, yellow glandular. Fr. Aug-Oct.