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Leaves aromatic when crushed, whorled or subopposite; blades 1–8 × 0.5–4 cm, suborbicular-elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, obtusely acuminate to emarginate at the apex, entire, cuneate to rounded at the base, with a pair of minute sessile discoid basal glands on the under surface often obscured by scales, firmly chartaceous, glabrous or minutely stellate-pubescent and bright or dark green on upper surface, densely silvery-lepidote and rusty-flecked beneath; midrib often impressed above, prominent beneath, lateral nerves in 4–10 pairs, not or scarcely prominent above, invisible beneath.
Male flowers: pedicels 1–2 mm long in bud, 3–4 mm long in flower; sepals 5, 2.5 × 1.5 mm, triangular-ovate, densely silvery-or rusty-lepidote without, sparingly pubescent to subglabrous within; petals 5, 2 × 0.5 mm, elliptic-oblong to linear, glabrous without, pubescent within, ciliate, pale yellowish-cream or whitish; disk glands 5, truncate, thin, glabrous; stamens 16, filaments 3–4 mm long, glabrous above, pubescent below, white, anthers 1 mm long with a broad connective, yellow; receptacle pubescent.
Female flowers: pedicels 2–2.5 mm long, stouter than in the male, densely lepidote; sepals 5, 3 × 2 mm, ovate, otherwise as in the male; petals as in the male; disk 5-lobed, the lobes truncate, glabrous; ovary 2.5 mm in diameter, globose, densely brown-lepidote; styles 3, 2 mm long, spreading, bicrurate (very deeply bipartite, almost bisected), the segments erect, linear-filiform, glabrous.
Shrub, up to 2 m high. Lateral nerves of leaves distinctly raised above, undersurface of leaves with conspicuous dark reddish brown to red scale dots. Flowers in small compact racemes only 10 mm long; yellow.
Seeds 4.5–5 × 2.5–3 × 1.5–2 mm, narrowly compressed-ellipsoid, smooth, shiny, dark brown or blackish; caruncle 1 mm wide, convex, creamy-white.
Racemes 0.5–2 cm long, abbreviated and often apparently umbellate, terminal, androgynous, all male or all female; bracts minute, scale-like.
Fruits 6–8 × 6–8 mm, shallowly rounded-trilobate, septicidal, densely silvery-green lepidote, brown-flecked.
A much-branched shrub, or small tree up to 5 m tall, monoecious or dioecious.
Young twigs densely silvery-lepidote and rusty-flecked.
Bark smooth, brownish-grey, later becoming roughened.
Stipules minute, obscured by the scales.
Petioles 0.1–2(4) cm long.
Shrub, to 12 ft. high.
Wood hard.
