Hermannia velutina Dc.

Frutex, slender, erect, 70 cm to 3 m high, branches rather slender, new growth pubescent to velvety tomentose with minute fringed scales and stellate hairs, glabrescent. Stipules leaf-like, elliptic-cuneate to oblanceolate-elliptic, 3-20 mm long, 1-6 mm broad, sessile or shortly petioled, velvety tomentose on both surfaces, mucronate. Leaves petiolate; blade broadly to narrowly oblong-elliptic, or oblanceolate-elliptic, 5-50 mm long, 2.5-20 mm broad, velvety tomentose on both surfaces, mucronate, often folded along midrib, midrib impressed above, prominent beneath; petiole 2-10 mm long, Inflorescence of short, paniculate cymes terminal on branchlets and in axils of upper leaves, 2.5-6 cm long; bracts early caducous, terete, up to 9 mm long, tomentose; pedicels short, 2-6 mm long. Calyx campanulate, 5-7 mm long, lobed to middle or beyond, pubescent with scale-or tubercle-based hairs, drying thin. Petals usually only slightly longer than calyx, from about 6 to 8 mm long, oblong to suborbicular in upper third, narrowed to a ciliate waist and produced in lower third into a claw with broadly infolded margins. Stamens about 5 mm long, filaments hyaline, obovate, obscurely pubescent on shoulder, anthers about 3 mm long, ciliate, overlapping filaments at base. Ovary finely pubescent with longer hairs at the apex, 5-angled and 5-umbonate at apex; stipe small, up to 0.75 mm long; styles cohering, about 2.5 mm long. Capsule enclosed in persistent perianth, about 5 mm long, finely stellate-tomentose but hairs longer at apex of capsule.