2n = 42

Spreading or trailing gynodioecious subshrub with ascending to erect branchlets, to 20 cm tall. Old stems grey or brown; branchlet s greenish to pale brown, with red band at nodes, bifariously pubescent; internodes 1–2x diameter. Leaf bud with narrow acuminate sinus. Leave s spreading, very shortly connate; lamina elliptic to obovate, subcoriaceous, yellowish green above and beneath, 3.5–9 × 2–5 mm, usually with sparse, very short, tapering eglandular hairs on midrib above an d beneath and margins, rarely glabrous; apex broadly rounded; base cuneately narrowed to short broad flat petiole; margin entire, yellowish, rounded. Inflorescences terminal, racemose, 1–3 cm long; flowers crowded, spiralled. Peduncle and rachis puberulent; peduncle very short. Bracts linear-lanceolate to narrow-elliptic, obtuse to acute, minutely ciliolate, slightly shorter than calyx lobes. Pedicels erecto-patent, 0.5–2 mm long. Flowers sweetly scented, female or hermaphrodite on separate plants. Calyx lobes 4, oblong to elliptic, obtuse to subacute, not overlapping, 2.5–3 × 1– 1.5 mm; margin minutely glandular and eglandular ciliolate. Corolla white; tube 1.5–2 × 1 .5–2 mm, funnelform, glabrous; lobes recurved, elliptic (female) to broadly elliptic (hermaphrodite), obtuse, 2.5–3 × 1.5–2.5 mm. Anthers purple, obtuse, fertile and c. 2 mm long (hermaphrodite) or sterile and c. 1 mm long (female); filaments white, long-exserted , 1(female)–3(hermaphrodite) mm long, erect or slightly spreading. Nectarial disk glabrous, fleshy, green. Style white, glabrous, (1–)3–5 mm long, curving to anterior of flower, clavate below stigma; stigma subcapitate. Ovary ovoid, glabrous, c. 1 × 0.7 mm; ovules 12–15 per locule, marginal on a discoid placenta. Capsule flattened, ovate, acute, dark brown, 3.5–4 × 3 mm, 1 mm thick, septicidal to base, loculicidal at apex only. Seeds pale orangebrown, elliptic, strongly piano-convex, smooth, 0.9– 1.1 × 0.6–0.8 mm. Chromosome number 2n = 42 (Hair 1967, as H. petriei var . petriei, now redetermined as H. murrellii).