An erect shrub 50-70 cm. tall. Branches terete, the slightly compressed tips, with petioles (1-5 mm. long) and rachis, reddish-scurfy but becoming more or less glabrous. Leaf blades ovate, sometimes orbicular-ovate, rounded at the base, moderately attenuate to the blunt apex, thickly leathery, lightly nerved (rarely nerveless), to 9 cm. long, 5 cm. broad. Spikes solitary, to 2 cm. long, stouter than in the preceding; peduncles to 5 mm. long. Bractlets not distinct from the rachis. Flowers or buds 1 mm. long, oblique to the rachis. Fruit ovate-oblong, about 5 mm. long, the apex evidently exceeded by the margin of the persistent calyculus.
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