Shrubs, 0.5-2 m tall; stems densely hirtellous. Leaves opposite but sometimes crowded at stem apices; petiole 0.2-2.2 cm, densely hirtellous; blade drying papery or thinly leathery, dark reddish brown, grayish green, or brownish green, elliptic, elliptic-oblong, lanceolate-oblong, obovate-oblong, or ovate, 3-15 × 1.3-6.5 cm, glabrous adaxially, densely hirtellous to hirsute throughout abaxially, base acute to obtuse, margins flat, apex shortly obtuse and sometimes then shortly acuminate; secondary veins 6-11 pairs, free or forming a weak, looping, incomplete submarginal vein, without domatia; stipules caducous, ovate, interpetiolar, 5-15 mm, densely hirtellous, 2-lobed for 1/3-1/2, lobes subulate. Inflorescences terminal or pseudoaxillary, capitate to densely congested-cymose, several flowered, hirtellous, sessile to pedunculate; peduncle to 1 cm; head subglobose, 1-1.5 × 1-1.5 cm; bracts narrowly triangular, 3-7 mm. Flowers sessile or subsessile. Calyx hirtellous; hypanthium portion obconic, ca. 1 mm; limb 1.5-3.5 mm, deeply lobed; lobes narrowly lanceolate, spatulate, or narrowly elliptic, ciliolate. Corolla white, funnelform, outside glabrous except pilosulous on tips of lobes; tube ca. 3 mm, densely villous in throat; lobes triangular-ovate, ca. 1.5 mm. Drupes red, ellipsoid or obovoid, 5-8 × 4-5 mm; pyrenes shallowly 4-or 5-ridged. Fl. May-Aug, fr. Jul-Nov.
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