Shrubs or small trees, 1-3 m tall. Twigs spiny, pallid brown, densely covered with rust-colored punctiform short bristles, glabrescent with age. Petiole 1-3 mm; leaf blade obovate, broadly obovate, or obovate-lanceolate, 1-4.5 × 1-1.8 cm, papery, or leathery with age, base cuneate, margin crenate, apex rounded or emarginate. Cymes axillary, dichotomous; peduncle 0.4-1 cm; bracts and bracteoles shorter than ca. 1 mm. Flowers white or light yellow, 3-5 mm in diam.; sepals triangular-ovate. Ovary confluent with disk; styles absent. Capsule subobovoid, red or purple, 5-7 mm at greatest width, 4-loculed, 2-valved. Seeds ellipsoid, 3-4 mm in diam., black-brown, basally covered by aril. Fl. Jun-Sep, fr. Aug-Dec.