Scrambling to erect shrub 1-2 m high, often branching at ground level, sometimes low-growing. Adult lvs petiolate, 9-50 × 6-20 mm, oblong; upper surface glabrous; lower surface with dense tomentum of sessile and stalked stellate hairs, often brown or ferruginous; margins sinuate to shallowly crenate, not revolute; stipules 1-2 mm long, soon deciduous. Juvenile lvs extremely variable, sometimes < 6 mm long, conspicuously toothed, thinly tomentose on both surfaces. Infl. an axillary or terminal, elongated, leafless panicle. Calyx green, spreading; lobes persistent to capsule maturity. Petals 0. Anthers ovoid. Ovary with apical tuft of short-rayed stellate hairs, wholly immersed in the calyx tube at anthesis, slightly > 1/2 immersed at fruiting. Fr. cocci opening by opercula occupying 4/5 of their inner faces.