Shrub or small tree 1– 5 m high, much branched, the branches erect, grey-black, glabrous, youngest branchlets grey-puberulous.. Leaves in whorls of 4, grey, linear-lanceolate, slightly convex above, convex and sulcate beneath, 0.9– 4.5 mm long, 0.5– 1 mm wide, glabrous or margins with shortly stalked glands, apex subacute and often with gland-topped hair, otherwise glabrous or puberulous; petiole 0.3– 0.6 mm, puberulous.. Flowers 7– 15, in small clumps at branch apices; pedicel 0.5– 1 mm long, with sparse but long spreading white simple hairs; bracteoles none.. Calyx (apparent calyx; some lobes are really recaulescent bracteoles) 4-merous, three lobes shortly triangular and 1– 1.7 mm long, the 4th 1.8– 2.2 mm long, leaf-like, green, with apical gland-topped hair, all lobes sparsely hairy with hairs like those on pedicel.. Corolla red to brownish, campanulate, 1.5– 1.7 mm long, lobes about 1/2 or 1/4 of that length, obtuse to rounded, glabrous.. Stamens 5– 8, usually 7, coherent, filaments flattened, anthers obovoid, 1– 1.3 mm long, fissured to halfway.. Ovary subglobose, ± 1 mm, puberulous, style 1– 2 mm long, stigma peltate, broadly orbicular, 0.7– 1 mm in diameter, with 4 raised lines forming a cross on upper surface.
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