Shrubs 0.5-3 m tall; stems reddish; branchlets densely or sparsely strigose, upper shoots rarely leafless but with some glomerules at nodes. Leaves alternate; stipules lanceolate, 3-5 mm; petiole (1-)2.6-11(-17) cm; leaf blade lanceolate to rhombic-ovate, (1-)3-19 × (0.9-)1.5-9 cm, papery, secondary veins 2 apical pairs, abaxial surface strigose or densely appressed pubescent, adaxial surface scabrous, sparsely pubescent, base rounded or cuneate, margin 8-14(-19)-dentate, apex acute or acuminate. Glomerules often unisexual on distal nodes, bisexual on proximal nodes, mostly axillary but sometimes forming almost leafless lateral spikes, reddish, 3-7 mm in diam.; bracts narrowly ovate, 2-4 mm. Male flowers: perianth lobes 4, connate to middle, strigose, apex acute. Female flowers: perianth tube ellipsoid or rhomboid, 0.8-1.2 mm, to 2 mm in fruit, pubescent, inconspicuously ribbed, 3- or 4-toothed. Achenes gray-yellow, ovoid, slightly compressed, 1-1.6 mm. Fl. Apr-Jul, fr. Jul-Aug.

Pouzolzia elegans has been recognized here at varietal rank under P. sanguinea because there are intermediates in leaf shape and leaf margin characters in Taiwan, Yunnan, and Nepal, and there is only partial geographic separation from P. sanguinea.

Warm evergreen broad-leaved forests, thickets, edges of woods, dry valleys, roadsides; 300-2300 m. Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Sichuan, Taiwan, S Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sikkim, Thailand, Vietnam].