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Leaves opposite; lamina 4·5–16 x 1·5–10 cm., ovate-lanceolate, acute at apex, roundish or somewhat acute at base, entire, chartaceous, discolorous (light to dark green above, yellow-green beneath), longitudinally 5–7-nerved, the longitudinal and transverse nerves and the reticulation impressed above making the upper face slightly bullate, reticulation prominent below; upper face sparsely to densely appressed-setose, the lower also setose, the bristles short, bulbous at base and very dense mainly on the reticulation (those on the nerves up to 3·5 mm. long); petiole up to 2·5 cm. long, strigose.
Branches bluntly 4-gonous, ± deeply sulcate, scabrid (covered with small appressed bristles bulbous at base), thickened at nodes, the oldest glabrescent and with grey and irregularly fissured bark; intemodes below the inflorescence usually very short.
Receptacle 7–12 x 5–8 mm., cylindric-campanulate, round at the base, green to purplish, with ± sparse patent or ascending bristles, these simple or 2–3-branched from the base, usually inserted on short protuberances, sometimes red-capitate-glandular.
Flowers 5-merous, in terminal usually short and very compact panicles, leafy a.: the base; bracts 3–6 x 2·5–3·5 mm., ovate or lanceolate, acute, densely setose outside, soon caducous; pedicels 2–3 mm. long.
Longer stamens: anthers 9–12 mm. long; pedoconnective 16–18 mm. long with the appendage deeply bilobed (lobes obtuse) and with a very short posterior spur at the base; filaments 14–15 mm. long.
Sepals 3–5 x 5–6 mm., semicircular or broadly ovate, oblique and apiculate at the top, glabrous, ciliate at margin, persistent; intersepalar segments absent.
A small tree up to 6 m. tall, with 1 or sometimes 2–3 main trunks, and a light open crown, or a large shrub, generally without leaves when in flower.
Shorter stamens: anthers 7–9 mm. long; pedoconnective 1·5–2·5 mm. long, appendiculate at base (appendage shortly bilobed); filaments 12 mm. long.
Seeds shortly papillose-tuberculate, the papillae arranged in curved lines.
Petals up to 2·5 x 2 cm., obovate, ciliate, purple.
Ovary ellipsoid, setose at the apex.
