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Leaves deciduous; blades drying grey-green or blackish, 1.4–4.2 × 0.5–2.5 cm, those borne along young stems linear-oblong, those clustered on brachyblasts narrowly to broadly elliptic, obtuse to acute and sometimes shortly apiculate at apex, cuneate at base, papery, finely pubescent to glabrescent above, finely pubescent with denser hairs on nerves beneath or occasionally entirely glabrous; lateral nerves in c. 3 main pairs; domatia present as small hairy tufts; petioles 2–5 mm long, pubescent; stipules 2–3 mm long, triangular-acuminate, pubescent outside.
Calyx tube c. 1 mm long, drying black, glabrous; limb-tube ± absent; lobes 0.5–0.75 × 0.5 mm, oblong-ovate or ovate, obtuse to rounded, clearly separated by sinuses, drying pale or light brown and somewhat chaffy, pubescent outside.
Corolla white, glabrous or less often sparsely hairy outside, hairy at throat and pubescence continuing part-way along lobes; tube 2–3 mm long, cylindrical, c. 1 mm wide at top; lobes 3–4 × c. 1.25 mm, narrowly oblong, obtuse.
Shrub, up to 2 m high. Leaves immature at time of flowering. Inflorescence with branches and pedicels very reduced, terminal on short leafless spurs. Tubular part of calyx limb often rather reduced. Flowers white.
Inflorescence terminal on the brachyblasts, 3–8-flowered, sessile, congested; inflorescence branches almost entirely suppressed; pedicels suppressed, bracteoles small, numerous, pubescent outside.
Much-branched or multi-stemmed shrub, 0.5–3 m tall; very young stems with light grey to buff-coloured bark, pubescent; lateral branches reduced to cushion shoots (brachyblasts) or up to 1 cm long.
Seed 1 per fruit, brownish-black, 2.5–3 mm in diameter with irregular hilar cavity, surface irregularly reticulate to naked eye; endosperm tending to be ruminate towards the base.
Fruit black when dry, globose, c. 5 mm in diameter, crowned by persistent corky calyx rim, lobes sometimes persistent.
Placenta small with 3–4 pendulous ovules.
Style pubescent.
