Shrubs 1-3 m tall, the branchlets slender, terete, often wiry, ultimately plane, puberulent. Leaves narrowly lanceolate, ovate oblong, lanceolate or oblong sub-rotund, 4.5-18.0 cm long, 1.5-7.5 cm wide, acute at the apex, usually contracted into a conspicuous acumen, attenuate, acute or obtuse at the base, often inequi-lateral, the costa slender, plane or prominulous above, prominulous to prominent beneath, the lateral veins 7-11, arcuate, prominulous, the smaller veins irregular perpendicular, membranous, glabrous or puberulent above, puberulent beneath, occasionally with white, strigose hairs; petioles 0.2-1.6 cm long; stipules connate, to 0.5 cm long, the sheath compressed cylindrical, often less than 1 mm long, each 1/2 with 2 subulate, erect or spreading awns, slightly longer than or to 5 times as long as the sheath, puberulent. Inflorescences terminal, solitary, subcapitate, to 2 cm long; peduncles to 1.5 cm long; bracts large, linear or linear ovate, to 2.5 cm long, puberulent, usually reflexed. Flowers minute, sessile, the buds 3 mm long; hypanthium 0.4 mm long, the calycine cup 0.3 mm long, eglandular within, petaloid, venose, ciliolate, the teeth 5, triangular, about as long as the calycine cup; corolla white, cylindrical, the bud clavate, 2 mm long, petaloid, puberulent outside, puberulent within at filament attachment; stamens 4-5, the anthers linear oblong, ca. 1 mm long, the filaments short; style to 2 mm long, the stigmatic area of the style wider than the basal portion, the stigmatic lobes oblong. Fruits ro-tund, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., glabrous, drying purple or black, the pyrenes with the dorsal face 4-6-ribbed.
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