Shrubs, 1-4 m tall, dioecious. Branches and branchlets purplish brown, puberulent when young, glabrescent. Stipules ca. 1 mm, membranous, caducous. Petiole 0.5-2 cm; leaf blade long elliptic to narrowly ovate, 5-15 × 1.8-5.5 cm, papery, abaxially puberulent along midvein and secondary veins but ± glabrescent, adaxially glabrous, midvein and secondary veins abaxially elevated and adaxially ± flat, base slightly asymmetric and broadly cuneate to subrounded, margin sharply serrulate, crenulate, or rarely subentire, apex caudate-acuminate, cauda usually slightly curved. Inflorescences thyrses in a raceme, 2-4 cm at anthesis but on female plants to ca. 7 cm in fruit, puberulent. Flowers white, 4-or 5-merous. Sepals and petals similar but petal margin more distinctly fimbriate and slightly wider, triangular, ca. 1 mm on male flowers and ca. 0.5 mm on female flowers, persistent on female plants in fruit, apex acute. Pedicel ca. 1.5 mm at anthesis, puberulent. Male flowers 2-3 mm in diam.; stamens ca. 1.5 mm, inserted on disk margin, exserted from perianth; anthers ellipsoid, ca. 0.5 mm; disk compressed and flat. Female flowers ca. 1 mm in diam.; disk slightly cup-shaped; ovary 2-loculed, with 2 ovules per locule; style ca. 0.5 mm, persistent in fruit, apically 2-lobed. Berry red or dark red, subglobose, 2-3(-5) mm in diam., apex rounded. Seeds 1 or 2 per locule. Fl. May-Sep, fr. Aug-Nov.
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It differs from P. alpestris by glabrous sepals, ciliate petals, very long exserted stamens (similar to some American species!), and less nerves; it has 5-merous flowers.
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