Shrub or small tree 1–8 (4.5–6 in Uganda) m. tall, with grey smooth persistent bark on the trunk; stems glabrous, lenticellate with dark red or greenish bark cracking into small flakes, very often peeling to reveal a red powdery layer.. Leaf-blades narrowly ovate to elliptic-lanceolate, 1.5–9(–12) cm. long, 0.7–3.8(–5) cm. wide, long-acuminate at the apex, the actual tip narrowly rounded, rounded to cuneate at the base, paler beneath, often shiny above, glabrous and domatia often ± poorly developed with few hairs, the venation often characteristically reticulate beneath; petiole 1.5–6 mm. long; stipules with bases joined 1.5–3 mm., hairy inside, with appendage 0.5–4 mm. long.. Inflorescence said to be sweet-scented, 2-flowered; peduncle 0.4 mm. long; pedicels 5–8.5(–10 in fruit) mm. long; bracts paired, ovate, 2 mm. long.. Buds acuminate to distinctly 5-tailed.. Calyx-tube 1.2 mm. long; limb ± 1 mm. long, hyaline, subtruncate to minutely denticulate.. Corolla white or tinged green; tube 4–5 mm. long, 1.5–1.7 mm. wide, glabrous outside with deflexed hairs inside; lobes 3–4 mm. long excluding the finely tapering-acute appendage (0.5–)1.5–2.5(–3) mm. long.. Ovary 2–3-locular; style ± 6 mm. long, with stigmatic club coroniform 1.2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide.. Fruit 1–1.2 cm. long, 6–10 mm. wide, with 1–2 pyrenes, often drying ± curved when only 1 pyrene.. Fig. 144, p. 816.
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