Shrubs, soft wooded, with woody rootstock. Stems erect to ascending, often gnarled and scraggly, branched, with conspicuous knobby short shoots, 70–150 cm, puberulent-tomentose, bark grayish red to light gray. Leaves alternate, well spaced on long shoots or fasciculate on short shoots; stipules 0.6–1.1 mm; petiole 4–12(–19) mm, slender, puberulent to shortly pilose; blade oblong, ovate, orbiculate, elliptic, or obovate, 6–24 × 5–21 mm, base rounded to cuneate, margins entire, apex acute to obtuse, surfaces puberulent-tomentose; venation conspicuous. Cyathia usually solitary on short shoots, peduncle 1.8–10.5 mm, puberulent-tomentose. Involucre campanulate, 1.4–3.8 × 2.1–4.4 mm, puberulent-tomentose; glands 5, yellow to reddish, oblong to reniform, 0.7–1.3 × 1.1–2.6 mm; appendages green-yellow to yellowish or whitish, oblong to transversely oblong, 0.6–1.9 × 1.3–3.8 mm, crenulate to erose. Staminate flowers 40–50. Pistillate flowers: ovary glabrous or puberulent; styles 1.6–2.7 mm, 2-fid at apex. Capsules oblate, 4.6–5.1 × 6.1–6.7 mm, usually glabrous or glabrescent, occasionally puberulent; columella 2.8–3.6 mm. Seeds grayish, subglobose to ovoid, rounded in cross section, 2.7–3.3 × 2.5–2.8 mm, foveolate; caruncle absent.