Herbs, woody or somewhat woody below, or slender, sprawling, arching, scrambling, or scandent shrubs or undershrubs, 1-5 m high, unarmed, often branching basally, subglabrous, with a strong aromatic odor; trunk sometimes 15-20 cm in circumference; branches elongate, drooping or pendulous to sub-scandent, light-green, the adult branches subterete, yellowish, glabrous; branchlets tetragonal, sparsely appressed-strigose and glandular-punctate. Leaves decussate-opposite or ternate, membranous, widely spreading or reflexed, deciduous, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, shiny, acuminate or long-acuminate apically, acuminate and entire basally and attenuate into the petiole, entire or obscurely crenate-serrate or-serrulate above the middle, scabrous above, pale and glabrous beneath or sparsely strigose on the veinlet-reticulation and pubescent in the vein-axils, the lower leaves ca. 8 cm long and 3.5 cm wide, the upper leaves smaller. Inflores-cence axillary, capitate; heads hemispheric, ca. 5 mm wide, becoming ovate or pyramidal-subglobose in age, many-flowered, plainly angulate; peduncles 1-3 per leaf-axil, subequaling the petiole; bractlets cuneate-obovate, subequally im-bricate and 8-ranked, abruptly cuspidate or broadly obtuse and short-apiculate apically, subequaling the corolla, many-veined, slightly narrower than the calyx villosity, the lower branchlets somewhat larger. Flowers not conspicuous; calyx 1-1.5 mm long, equaling or shorter than the corolla-tube, acutely bifid, bifariously villous with long trichomes on the keel, otherwise shortly white-pubescent; corolla small, hypocrateriform, not conspicuous, pale-green or greenish-white to cream, pale-yellow, or white, the tube exiguous, the limb pubescent or hirtellous on the outer surface. Fruit obcordate, fuscous or black, smooth, included by the mature calyx.
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