Evergreen shrubs or small trees, up to 5 m tall, ca. 4 cm d.b.h.; roots fusiform-inflated or nodose-inflated, 3.5-8 × 0.7-2.5 cm, brown-yellow or brown-black and rugose on surface, aromatic. Bark gray-brown. Young branchlets blue-green, longitudinally striate, densely golden sericeous or laxly pubescent, later gradually deciduous and glabrous, brown when dry. Terminal bud narrowly elliptic. Leaves alternate; petiole 0.5-1 cm, brown pubescent, later gradually deciduous; leaf blade pale abaxially, green and shiny adaxially, narrowly ovate, broadly elliptic, subrounded, or lanceolate, 2.7-6 × 1.3-4 cm, sometimes up to 7 cm, leathery or subleathery, densely brown pubescent abaxially, later gradually deciduous, sometimes slightly black pubescent, trinerved, midrib and lateral veins distinctly convex abaxially, concave adaxially, rarely convex, base rounded, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate. Umbels 6-8, inserted in short branchlet, axillary, not pedunculate, each with a bract and 7 flowers; short branchlets 1-2 mm. Pedicels ca. 0.4 mm, pubescent. Tepals 6, yellow or yellow-green, sometimes milky white and slightly purple-red, white pubescent outside, glabrous inside. Male flowers: tepals ca. 4 × 2 mm; stamens 3-4 mm; filament laxly pubescent, 2-glandular at base in 3rd whorl; glands reniform, stipitate, sometimes 1 or 2 at filament base in 2nd whorl; reduced pistil urceolate. Female flowers: tepals ca. 2.5 × 2 mm; reduced stamens fasciated, ca. 1.5 mm, laxly pubescent, 2-glandular at filament base in 3rd whorl; glands stipitate; ovary ellipsoid, ca. 1.5 mm, brown pubescent; stigma capitate. Fruits ovate or sometimes subrounded, 0.6-1 cm × 4-7 mm. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. May-Nov.
Shrub thickets along mountainsides. Sunny mountain slopes, valleys, sparse forests and thickets; at elevations from 200-1,000 metres in China.
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