Shrubs or small trees to 6 m high with few to many branches; stems with slightly fleshy surface, usually grayish, terete to slightly angular, densely and coarsely hirsute on younger parts, glabrescent. Leaves opposite; blades papy-raceous to rather coriaceous, broadly to narrowly elliptical, mostly 12-22 cm long and 5-9 cm wide, the base narrowly cuneate, the margins serrate to serrulate, the apex narrowly short-acuminate, the surface sparsely pilose mostly on veins, sparsely glandular-punctate below, 5-10 glands per mm2, the secondary veins pinnate, veinlets prominently and closely reticulate; petioles often rather stout, 1-3 cm long. Inflorescence pyramidal, the branches broadly paniculate, the ultimate branches 2-5 mm long, laxly puberulous. Heads 5-6 mm high with usually 12-20 florets; involucral bracts ca. 20, subimbricate, somewhat unequal, in 2-3 series, broadly ovate to lanceolate, the apex sharply acute, the outer surface sparsely puberulous and sometimes glandular-punctate, 3-5-striate, the inner bracts easily deciduous, reaching to level of basal third or middle of mature corolla; corolla white, ca. 3 mm long, with a few capitate glands on outer surface of lobes. Achenes 2-3 mm long with many bristles mostly on ribs, the achene base narrow with a small short tapering carpopodium; pappus of ca. 25-30 stout closely contiguous bristles, many bristles with tips as wide as base.
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