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Flowers scented, sessile, bracteolate; lower bracteoles connate into an irregularly bilobed cup, 1.5–2 mm tall, puberulous outside, white ciliate on the margin; upper bracteole forming an ovoid calyptra 4.5–5(7) × 2.7–3 mm, puberulous outside, strigose hairy inside, with a curved beak at apex, at first closed and enclosing the flower bud but later irregularly circumscissile or sometimes divided longitudinally into 2 lobes.
Leaves 5.4–16.6(21.5) × (1.5)2–4.9(5.8) cm, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, acute, acuminate or obtuse at the apex, cuneate or somewhat rounded at the base, sometimes those below the lateral branches reduced, ± round to oblong-lanceolate, glabrous, thinly coriaceous, shiny; lateral nerves 7–12; petiole 5–8 mm long; stipules 1.5–6 × 2.5–3 mm, broadly triangular, abruptly drawn out into an acumen 1 mm long, deciduous.
Calyx pale pink turning brown, closed in bud, scarious, sparsely to rather densely puberulous outside either all over or only towards the apex, silky-strigose inside, 4–5.5 mm long; tube 1.5–2.5 mm long with the limb-tube splitting into 2 lobes; lobes 2.25–3 mm long, 3.25–3.5 mm wide at the base, broadly ovate, apiculate at the apex.
Corolla white or whitish-rose, obovoid in bud, 6 mm long, acute, puberulous or glabrous outside; corolla tube tinged greenish, 3.5–4.75 mm long, 2.5–3.5 mm wide at throat; lobes 2.5–2.8 × 1.7–2 mm, ovate-triangular.
Fruit green flushed red, becoming wine-red or black, 6–8 mm in diameter, globose, glabrous, crowned by the persistent calyx limb; flesh green and sweet.
Shrub or less often a small tree 1.2–7(9) m tall, with graceful glabrous rather compressed branches; bark pale brown or grey, flaking.
Style white, about 6.5 mm long, densely pubescent save at the base, bifid at the apex.
Inflorescences of sessile many-flowered glomerules 12 mm in diameter.
