Shrubs 1-5 m tall. Branchlets pubescent, glabrescent. Stipules elliptic, 3-5[-8] mm, chocolate brown, apex subulate, deciduous; petiole 2-4 cm, pilose; leaf blade oblong-lanceolate or oblong, 7-14 × 2.5-5.5 cm, thickly papery, often drying dull brown, abaxially sparsely dark glandular-scaly, midrib pilose, base slightly auriculate-cordate, with 2 glands, margin sparsely glandular-denticulate, apex acuminate; veins 5-8 pairs. Male inflorescences very slender, (1.5-)4-9 cm; peduncle slender, 0.5-2 cm; axis glabrous or pilose; bracts deltoid, ca. 1 mm. Male flowers tiny, 3-5 per bract, surrounded by persistent whorl of 3 or 4 hooded bracteoles; pedicel ca. 1 mm, pilose; sepals 3, ovate, ca. 1.5 mm, glabrous; stamens 20-22. Female inflorescences often 1-flowered, sometimes inflorescence bisexual, with 1 or 2 male flowers; peduncle slender, 3-9 cm; flower subtended by pair of leafy bracts. Female flowers: pedicel 1-2 mm; sepals 4, lanceolate, 2-3 mm, pilose; ovary 2-locular; styles 2, filiform, 1.2-1.4 cm, basally connate. Capsule 2-lobed, ca. 5 × 11-12 mm wide, densely glandular-scaly, with sparse long sinuous caducous spines. Seeds subglobose, ca. 5 mm in diam., brownish, marbled. Fl. and fr. year-round.
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