Shrubs or trees, evergreen, 8-10 m tall. Young branchlets black or dark red, glabrous; older branchlets gray. Petiole 5-10 mm, glabrous; leaf blade purple-brown or yellowish brown, shiny adaxially when dry, elliptic or oblong-elliptic, 4-11.7 × 1.5-4.3 cm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein flat or slightly raised adaxially, lateral veins 7 or 8 pairs, indistinct, reticulate veins obscure on both surfaces, base obtuse or broadly cuneate, margin sparsely and inconspicuously serrulate, apex acute, shortly acuminate, or obtuse. Inflorescences: cymes, solitary, axillary. Male inflorescences: cymes of order 3, 7-flowered; flowers 4-or 5-merous; calyx shallowly 5-lobed, lobes obtuse-rounded; corolla rotate; stamens 5, shorter than petals; rudimentary ovary glabrous. Female inflorescences: cymes of order 2, 3-flowered; flowers 4-or 5-merous; calyx ciliate. Infructescences: 1-3-fruited; peduncles slightly compressed, 9-20 mm, thinly striate, glabrous; fruiting pedicels 0.7-15 mm, glabrous. Fruit black when dry, globose, 6-8 mm in diam.; persistent calyx 5-lobed, ciliate; persistent stigma thickly discoid; pyrenes 5, oblong, ca. 4 mm, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., abaxially longitudinally 1-sulcate, endocarp leathery. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Sep-Nov.