Shrub 1½-3 m; branchlets applanate; younger parts nigrescent or dark brownish, smooth, glabrous, elsewhere soon covered with cork. Leaves ovate-oblong or oblong, rarely oblong-lanceolate, shortly gradually acuminate to the apex, broadly cuneate at the base, coriaceous or nearly so, not or obscurely pellucid-punctate, glabrous, entire or inconspicuously and remotely denticulate, 10-20 by 4½-7(-10) cm; midrib nearly flat above, strongly raised beneath, nerves 6-7 pairs, curved-ascending, little or not prominent above, veins ± transverse, little but visibly prominent on both sides as are the reticulations; petiole glabrous, 5-7 mm. Stipules lanceolate, mostly persistent at the upper nodes, sometimes rather early caducous, leaving distinct scars, 5-6 by 3-4 mm. Flowers 1-2, white, sessile on top of a short (3-7 mm), solitary axis, the latter densely covered by numerous bracts over its whole length. Bracts membranous, ovate-acuminate, glabrous, ± 2 mm. Calyx in all c. 6-7 by 3 mm, 5-lobed in the upper half, tubular in the inferior one, ± densely pilose both in-and outside. Stamens 10; filaments glabrous, alternately 2 and 1.5 mm long. Staminodes subulate, densely pilose, c. 1 mm. Ovary narrow-ovoid, pilose, 5-6 mm.
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