Shrubs, evergreen, to 2 m tall. Bark gray-brownish. Branchlets of current year brownish, slender, sometimes with dense lenticels, glabrous; branchlets of previous year gray-whitish, terete, glabrous, with dispersed, small, rounded lenticels. Winter buds ovoid-oblong, with 1 pair of separate scales; scales reddish brown, glabrous, apex acute. Leaves often clustered at apices of branchlets; stipules absent; petiole green, slender, 7-15 mm, glabrous; leaf blade purplish when young, elliptic, elliptic-ovate, or suborbicular, 2-6(-7.5) × 1-3 cm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein raised abaxially, triplinerved, veins reaching 3/4 length of leaves, pinnate, arched, rarely branched, anastomosing near margin, conspicuously raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, veinlets transverse, inconspicuous abaxially, slightly impressed adaxially, not lobed, base obtuse or rounded, without glands, margin entire, apex obtuse or rounded. Flowers appearing after leaves; inflorescence a compound umbel-like cyme, terminal, 1.5-10 cm in diam.; rays whorled; first node of inflorescence with 6-8 rays, lax, glabrous, without large sterile radiant flowers; peduncle ca. 1 cm, slender; bracts caducous, leaflike, green, linear to linear-lanceolate, glabrous; bracteoles scalelike. Flowers usually on rays of 2nd order, not fragrant; pedicels 1-2 mm, slender. Calyx greenish; tube broadly campanulate, less than 1 mm, glabrous; lobes broadly triangular or broadly ovate, very small, ca. 0.5 mm, nearly 1/2 as long as calyx tube, glabrous, apex obtuse. Corolla greenish white, rotate, ca. 4 mm in diam., glabrous; tube ca. 1 mm; lobes spreading, suborbicular, ca. 1 mm in diam., ca. 2 × as long as tube, apex rounded, margin entire. Stamens nearly as long as corolla, inserted near base of corolla tube; filaments ca. 3 mm; anthers yellow, globose, ca. 1 mm. Styles nearly as long as calyx lobes; stigmas subsessile. Fruit not turning red, maturing purple-blackish, suborbicular, 4-5 mm in diam., base rounded, apex acute, glabrous; pyrenes globose, ca. 4 mm in diam., with 1 very small and shallow ventral groove, apex rounded. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jun-Oct.
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