Corolla (4)5-merous, green turning reddish, tomentose, bilaterally symmetrical, developing only a short V-slit; buds straight, with ellipsoid to obovoid head, induplicate; lobes short, erect, somewhat incurved at tip, spathulate.
Stamens attached at base of corolla lobes, short, essentially erect, but curving inward to form a central, collective anther-mass; anthers 4-thecous, with minute connective appendage.
Medium-sized to large shrubs extending to 1.5 m or so, spreading by stout haustoria-bearing surface runners; hairs stellate and dendritic; twigs terete.
Flowers 2–6 in sessile to shortly stalked umbels in the axils and crowded at older nodes; bract unilateral, lanceolate to ovate.
Style terete, tapered, pubescent on lower half; stigma obovoid to globular.
Leaves alternate to opposite, sometimes fascicled, petiolate, penninerved.
Berry red, cylindrical, hairy.
Calyx annular.