Erect, simple or branched shrub, 30-90 cm high. Twigs slightly angular, (sub)glabrous. Leaves oblong to lanceolate, 5-16 by 1-5 cm, acuminate or cuspidate, base attenuate, glabrous to hairy, charta-ceous, petioled (petiole 0.5-2 cm). Racemes terminal, 1-4 together, erect, including the peduncle 4-16 cm, dense. Bracts and bracteoles early caducous. Flowers 5-6 mm long, white and yellow, later crimson and pink, on 1-3 mm long pedicels. Sepals rounded, usually ciliate, the abaxial one not strongly saccate, the alae elliptic to nearly orbicular. Upper petals lanceolate; keel with 2 deltoid, massive, wrinkled appendages. Filaments free for c. ¼. Disk ± annular, abaxially protruding backwards. Ovary ± quadrangular with rounded edges; style straight or with slightly recurved apex, subapically at inner side with a knob-like stigmatic appendage and there laterally with 2 triangular, wing-like appendages. Capsule ± didymous, c. 7 by 12 mm, winged, with faintly protruding concentric nerves, coriaceous, purple, glabrous. Seed elliptic or orbicular, at micro-pylar side with a small appendage, black, glabrous, (nearly) completely covered by the smooth, orange to scarlet aril, the slightly protruding chalaza and the raphe distinctly visible.
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