Shrubs or small trees, evergreen, to 6 m tall. Bark gray-brownish. Branchlets of current year purple-brownish, with many conspicuous lenticels, subglabrous; branchlets of previous year purple-brownish, terete, glabrous, with numerous, large, rounded lenticels. Winter buds ovoid, with 1 pair of separate scales; scales reddish brown, glabrous, apex acute. Leaves always opposite, not clustered at apices of branchlets; stipules absent; petiole green, robust, 1.5-3.5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade purplish when young, elliptic-oblong, 6-13(-18) × 3-5(-7) cm, leathery, abaxially often yellowish stellate-pubescent in axils of veins, adaxially glabrous, midvein raised abaxially, triplinerved, veins pinnate, arched, rarely branched, anastomosing near margin, raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, veinlets transverse, conspicuous abaxially, slightly impressed but not conspicuously rugose adaxially, not lobed, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, without glands, margin entire or occasionally remotely serrate near apex, apex acute. Flowers appearing after leaves; inflorescence a compound umbel-like cyme, terminal, 6-15 cm in diam.; rays whorled; first node of inflorescence with 6-8 rays, lax, large, glabrous, without large sterile radiant flowers; peduncles 1.5-3.5 cm; bracts caducous, leaflike, green, linear to linear-lanceolate, glabrous; bracteoles scalelike. Flowers on rays of 2nd and 3rd orders, not fragrant; pedicels 2-3 mm, slender. Calyx greenish; tube obconical, 1-2 mm, glabrous; lobes suborbicular or triangular, very small, ca. 0.5 mm, glabrous, apex obtuse. Corolla white, rotate, 4-5 mm in diam., glabrous; tube ca. 1 mm; lobes recurved, broadly ovate, ca. 1 mm, nearly as long as tube, apex rounded, margin entire. Stamens longer than corolla, inserted near base of corolla tube; filaments ca. 3 mm; anthers yellow, subglobose, ca. 1 mm. Styles nearly as long as calyx lobes; stigmas subsessile. Fruit not turning red, maturing blue-blackish, subglobose, ca. 4 mm in diam., base rounded, apex acute, glabrous; pyrenes globose, ca. 3 mm in diam., with 1 very small and shallow ventral groove or without groove, apex rounded. Fl. May, fr. Jun-Jul. 2n = 18*.
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