Shrubs or small trees, 2-4(-5) m tall. Growing branches of current year reddish green, straight, more than 1.5 m tall, ligneous; vegetative branchlets ascending from growing branches nearly at right angle. Leaves of growing branches greenish, subamplexicaul, faintly auriculate; those of vegetative branches ovate, base obtuse and decurrent, 2/3 of leaf adnate to stem, margin membranous, apex apiculate. Racemes 2-3(-5) cm × 3-4(-5) mm, solitary or 1-3 clustered, lateral in growing branches of previous year, and vegetative branchlets appearing simultaneously and clustered; peduncles 5-10 mm, with sparse, scale-like bracts; bracts oblong-ovate, 0.7-1 mm, shorter than or ca. as long as pedicels, apex obtuse, slightly incurved. Pedicels 1-1.5 mm. Flowers 4-merous, small, less than 3 mm in diam. Calyx 0.7-1 mm, ca. 1/3 shorter than petals; sepals 4, ovate, margin membranous, denticulate, apex acute, carinate, spreading after anthesis. Petals 4, white or whitish, obovate, 1-1.5 × ca. 0.7 mm, slightly spreading after anthesis, mostly persistent at fruiting stage. Disk purple-red, small, thick, 4-lobed; lobes attenuate upward into base of filaments. Stamens 4; filaments equaling or slightly exceeding petals, base dilated, inserted at apex of disk lobes; anthers purple-red or yellow, apex apiculate. Ovary narrowly conic; styles 3, rarely 4, clavate, short, 1/4-1/3 as long as ovary. Capsule narrowly conic, small, 4-5 × ca. 1 mm; seeds yellow-brown. Fl. Apr-May, occasionally in autumn at apices of new branches. Flowers blooming in autumn 5-merous.
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