Shrubs, 0.75-2 m tall; stems puberulent. Petiole 0.4-2 cm, puberulent; leaf blade drying papery, reddish brown, grayish brown, yellowish green, or greenish brown, often paler abaxially, narrowly elliptic or narrowly oblong-lanceolate, 4-14 × 1-4.5 cm, glabrous adaxially, puberulent to glabrous abaxially, base acute to cuneate, margins flat, apex acute to acuminate; secondary veins 6-10 pairs, free or forming a weak looping submarginal vein, without domatia; stipules caducous, ovate to triangular, interpetiolar, 1.5-4 mm, puberulent, 2-lobed for 1/5-1/2, lobes linear-lanceolate to subulate. Inflorescences terminal or pseudoaxillary, subcapitate to congested-cymose, few to several flowered, puberulent to glabrous, sessile to shortly pedunculate; peduncle to 0.5 cm; branched portion subglobose to corymbiform, 0.5-1.5 × 0.6-1.5 cm; bracts triangular, 1-1.5 mm; pedicels to 1 mm. Flowers subsessile to pedicellate. Calyx puberulent; hypanthium portion turbinate, ca. 1 mm; limb 0.8-1.2 mm, shallowly to deeply lobed; lobes triangular to narrowly triangular. Corolla white, funnelform, glabrous outside; tube 1.5-2 mm, densely villous in throat; lobes triangular, 1.2-1.5 mm. Infructescences sometimes expanding, to 2 × 3.5 cm; pedicels to 2 mm. Drupes red, ovoid or globose, 4-7 × 3-5 mm; pyrenes shallowly 3-or 4-ridged. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Aug-Feb of following year.