Erect, sparsely branched, multi-stemmed lignotuberous shrub, 1.5-3.5 m tall, basal branches up to 10-15 mm diam.; older specimens occasionally developing a single main trunk 45-50 mm diam. Bark smooth, grey mottled white. Stems glabrous, dark red. Leaves ascending, coriaceous, lanceolate, acute or shortly mucronate, 30-55 x 5-15 mm, pale greenish-glaucous, initially very sparsely puberulous, glabrescent but remaining puberulous basally, margins horny, reddish, midrib prominent, red; shortly petiolate, petiole 3-5 mm long, reddish. Inflorescence erect, terminal, usually solitary, occasionally with up to 8 pedunculate axillary inflorescences developing on a flowering shoot, cylindric, 50-70 flowered, 30-60 mm long, subsessile to shortly pedunculate, peduncle up to 10 mm long, axis densely cinereous. Flowers shortly pedicellate, pedicel to 2 mm long, densely cinereous. Subtending floral bracts ovate acute, 1 mm long. Perianth 10 mm long, adaxially curved, minutely puberulous, glabrescent swollen and dull carmine ba-sally otherwise greenish-brown at anthesis. Hypogynous scales lanceo-late acuminate 2-3 mm long, orange. Ovary ovoid 2 mm long, densely sericeous with single apically attached ovule. Style filiform, straight, gla-brous, swollen basally, 9-10 mm long, becoming slightly adaxially curved in fruiting stage. Pollen presenter narrowly clavate, 2 mm long, geniculate at junction with style. Stigmatic groove terminal. Achene ovoid, basally truncate, sericeous, 5-6 x 2-3 mm, style persistent.
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