Shrubs, deciduous, 1-4.5 m tall. Winter buds with a pair of boat-shaped outer scales; scales densely white tomentose inside. Young branches usually hirsute, often with stiff hairs and minute glands; bark verrucose, splitting; vigorous shoots with well-developed interpetiolar discoid stipules. Leaves ovate to lanceolate, 3-10 × 2-7 cm, abaxially usually hirsute, more densely so at base of midvein, sometimes with minute glands, adaxially sparsely hirsute or subglabrous, base rounded to subcordate, margin ciliate, entire or occasionally shallowly lobed, apex acute to acuminate. Inflorescence terminal with 1-3 whorls, cymes 2-flowered (occasionally 3-flowered); peduncle 1-2 mm, hirsute, glandular; bracts leaflike, lanceolate to ovate, to 1.5 cm; bracteoles fused into an urceolate cupule, completely surrounding 2 neighboring free ovaries, accrescent to 7-13 mm in diam. in fruit, outside densely villous when young, inside adpressed villous. Calyx pubescent; lobes triangular, ciliate. Corolla bilabiate, white, later yellowish, 1.3-1.7 cm, outside usually densely hirsute and glandular hairy, inside villous; tube shallowly gibbous toward base, slightly longer than or subequaling lobes; upper lip shallowly 4-lobed; lower lip recurved. Stamens and style exserted from corolla tube. Style pubescent toward base. Cupule loosely enclosing paired berries, sometimes splitting. Berries red, ovoid, to 1 cm, 2-7-seeded; seeds light brown, ellipsoid, compressed, 4-7 mm, densely rusty pitted. Fl. Apr-Jul, fr. Aug-Oct. 2n = 36.
Can be grown by cuttings or seedlings. Seeds needs stratification.
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