Geoxylic suffrutex with thick horizontal rhizome, 2 cm thick, bearing multiple erect annual shoots up to ca. 20 cm tall. Branches grey, glabrous, lenticellate, sometimes peeling off in thin papery pieces, cylindrical; leafy branchlets brown, puberulent. Leaves lamina green when mature, reddish brown when young, glabrous, blade narrowly elliptic, 21-47 mm long, (6-)9-15(-18) mm wide, apex acute or sometimes obtuse, often with a conspicuous mucro extending up to 2.5 mm long, more so in young leaves, base attenuate to obtuse, margins serrulate with teeth incurving often ending in darkened mucronate tips, venation conspicuous, midrib raised abaxially and adaxially, lateral veins prominent extending to leaf margin, 10-14 pairs, tertiary veins reticulate, conspicuous; petioles up to 2 mm long. Stipules lateral to the petiole, sometimes nearly fused at base, semi-persistent, variable, linear to elongate-deltoid sometimes with broadened base, margins fringed, up to 5(-6.5) mm long. Inflorescences terminal, on leafless shoots from rhizomatous base, 2-to 9-flowered, condensed racemes, total inflorescence length 1.0-3.5 cm, inflorescence axes puberulent, pale green, total length of pedicels (4-)9-17 mm long at anthesis, length of pedicels below articulation point 2.5-6.0 mm, articulated mostly in proximal half; scales present on pedicels, translucent brown with darkened central line, linear-ensiform, navicular, caducous, 1.2-3.0 mm long; pedicels 12-18 mm long in immature fruit. Sepals 5, green, narrowly ovate to ovate, 5-7 mm long, 2-4 mm wide at anthesis; deep red, extending to 7-9 mm long in fruit, not reflexed (only immature fruits seen). Petals 5, bright yellow, obovate, clawed, concave when live, 6.0-10.5 mm long, 3.5-6.0 mm wide, glabrous. Stamens many, more than 10, filaments 1-3 mm long, anthers 2-4 mm long, apically biporose. Carpels 5, styles gynobasic, united almost to the apex, 2.5-4.5 mm long, apices free with five spreading or recurved stigma lobes. Drupelets (immature) black, subglobose, attached at base, ca. 6 mm long, ca. 8 mm wide.
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