Corchorus velutinus Wild

Small shrub up to 1 m tall, all parts except the corolla with a short, dense, velvety, greyish yellow indumentum, the old stems becoming glabrous finally with a brownish bark. Leaf-blade 20-50 x 6-25 mm, narrowly oblong or narrowly elliptic, submucronate and obtuse at the apex, widely cuneate at the base, dentate or repand-dentate at the margin, with 13-15 pairs of rather inconspicuous nerves which are slightly immersed above and slightly raised below; petiole about 10 mm long; stipules 1-2 mm long, caducous, subulate. Inflorescence of small, 3-11-flowered cymes opposite the upper leaves or borne some distance from the nodes; peduncles up to 15 mm long; pedicels similar, up to 15 mm long; bracts about 2 mm long, subulate. Sepals up to 10 x 2.5 mm, narrowly elliptic or very narrowly elliptic, somewhat keeled dorsally, caudate at the apex (thus rendering the bud apiculate at its apex), velvety outside, glabrous within. Petals yellow, up to 10 x 3 mm, narrowly oblanceolate-oblong, with a small basal claw about 1.2 mm long and with a very shortly stellately pubescent margin. Androgynophore 0.5 mm tall, with an annulus above. Stamens numerous, filiform. Ovary 3-locular, cylindric, shortly stellately villose; style about 4 mm long, glabrous. Capsule cylindric, not beaked, sometimes slightly torulose, greyish or yellowish velvety-tomentose with longer tufted hairs scattered among the shorter stellate indumentum; seeds numer ous, about 2.5 x 1.2 mm, irregularly ellipsoid, very dark brown.