Erect shrub to c. 3 m high. Shoots with ferruginous, stellate tomentum when young. Petiole to 2 cm long on adult lvs, stellate-tomentose. Lamina 45-150 × 20-55 mm on flowering shoots (sometimes larger on juvenile and vegetative shoots), ovate or ovate-elliptic, sometimes narrowly elliptic; upper surface nearly always glabrous, somewhat rugose with veins impressed; lower surface densely clothed in sessile stellate hairs, but with interveinal areas with green surface always showing when mature and midrib veins ferruginously tomentose; margins crenulate to denticulate; apex rounded or obtuse; stipules 5-12 mm long, subulate, soon deciduous. Infl. a large, terminal, much-branched, stellate-tomentose panicle to c. 20 cm long. Calyx lobes 1-1.5 mm long, green, glabrous within, reflexing. Petals 0. Anthers oblong. Ovary with terminal tuft of white, stellate, long-rayed hairs, wholly immersed in calyx tube at anthesis, c. 1/2 immersed at fruiting. Fr. c. 2 mm diam., globular, blackish; cocci opening by opercula occupying > 3/4 of their inner faces.