Shrubs or small trees. Stems and branches grayish white. Young branchlets pale purplish red. Branchlets and midvein of leaflet blades abaxially with prickles. Leaves 9-23-foliolate; petiolules 1-3 mm, adaxially pubescent; leaflet blades alternate, lanceolate and 2-11 × 1-4 cm, narrowly lanceolate and 2-3.5 × 0.4-0.7 cm, or ovate and 8-16 × 6-8 mm, oil glands inconspicuous, midvein adaxially ridged to plane and puberulent but glabrous in fruit, reticulate veinlets ridged on both surfaces, base cuneate to subrounded, margin crenulate, apex acuminate to mucronate. Inflorescences terminal, cymose-corymbiform, to 30-flowered. Flowers 4-merous. Perianth in 2 series. Sepals ca. 0.5 mm. Petals 2.5-3 mm. Male flowers: pedicel 2-5 mm; stamens 4; connective without an oil gland at apex; rudimentary gynoecium disciform; styles coherent. Female flowers: pedicel 0.6-1.5 cm; staminodes absent. Fruit pedicel purplish red, 1-3 cm, glabrous; follicles pale purplish red to dark red, 4.5-5 cm in diam., oil glands impressed when dry, apex beaked. Seeds ca. 4 mm in diam. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Aug-Sep.