Shrubs or small trees, usually 3-8 m tall. Branchlets reddish brown or reddish black, angular when dry, glabrous. Petiole 7-15(-24) mm, glabrous; leaf blade sometimes reddish purple adaxially when young, glaucous or white-farinose abaxially when old, broadly oblanceolate, rarely obovate-lanceolate, (7.5-)10-18(-23) × 3-4.5(-6.5) cm, leathery or subleathery, densely appressed silvery sericeous abaxially when young, glabrous or appressed pubescent abaxially and glabrous adaxially when old, midrib thick, abaxially very conspicuous, adaxially impressed, rarely plane, lateral veins 6-14 pairs, usually 10-12, abaxially raised, veinlets abaxially conspicuous, base cuneate or narrowly cuneate, apex shortly acuminate, sometimes summit falcate. Inflorescences from upper part of current year branchlet, slender, 8-14 cm, subracemose or branched at upper part of peduncle, glabrous. Pedicel ca. as long as flower. Flowers 4-5 mm. Perianth lobes slightly unequal, puberulent to glabrous outside, densely canescent inside. Filaments glabrous or hairy at base only, those of 3rd series with sessile glands at base. Ovary compressed globose, glabrous; stigma cap-shaped or somewhat enlarged. Fruit ovoid, 1-1.2 cm × ca. 7 mm; fruiting pedicel slightly thickened; persistent perianth lobes ovate, lax with longitudinal veins, ciliate. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Aug-Sep.

● Mountain valleys, streamsides. Anhui, Gansu, Guizhou, Hubei, C, SE, and W Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi.