Laxly branched shrub or treelet, 2-3(-6) m, trunk often blackish, 4-10 cm ø. Branchlets distally ferrugineous-tomentellous. Leaves obovate-oblong or-elliptic, more rarely oblong, apex ± shortly subacutely acuminate, base cuneate, rarely obtuse or even rounded in the same specimen, subcoriaceous to firmly chartaceous, young ones very laxly stellate-hairy above, sub-densely covered beneath with short, fascicled rusty hairs at midrib, and all over the under-surface with very dense minute stellate hairs, which form a pale coherent layer, moreover nerves and especially veins and veinlets set with darker rusty stellate-fascicled, tardily evanescent hairs so to say on top of the pale layer mentioned above, mature leaves dark green above, yellowish rusty beneath, early glabrescent above, tardily so beneath, generally shortly to very shortly sub-serrate-or crenate-dentate, (4-)6-9 by (2-)2.5-4(-5.5) cm, nerves in 14-16(-17) pairs, slightly curved or rather straight from the midrib, rather obscurely inarching, prominent below, veins but slightly raised; petiole 9-14 by c. 1 mm. Racemes 3-6, ± fascicled, partly branched below, erect, dense-flowered, 6-12 cm, covered with a short almost villous, rusty (finally greyish) pubescence of fascicled and stellate hairs; rachis rather robust Pedicels thickish, 1-1.5 mm at anthesis, subtending bracts subovate-subulate, 2 mm, persistent for a while. Calyx lobes ovate, subacuminate, 2-2 5 mm. Petals obovate-spathulate, often connate or coherent in the lower part, crenulate, glabrous white or cream, (2.5-)3-3.5 by c. 1.5 mm. Filaments dilated downwards, glabrous, 2(-2 5) mm; anthers obcordate, c. 0.6 mm. Ovary rusty-tomentulose; style glabrous, 1.2-1.5 mm (in fruit to 2.5 mm). Capsule subglobose, c. 3 mm ø. Seeds subtrigonous-ovoid, 0.8 mm.
In patches of shrubberies within grassland or fern thickets of Gleichenia, or in forest edges, not rarely in periodically burned vegetation fairly common locally, sometimes forming pure loose stands on sandy or clayey soil, 700-1200(-1950) m. Fl.fr. Jan.-Dec.
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