Shrubs 1–2 m tall. Young branchlets glabrous, slightly lenticellate. Leaves usually 3–5-clustered at branchlet apex, biennial; petiole 8–15 mm; leaf blade pale green abaxially, yellow-green after drying, green and shiny adaxially, long elliptic, obovate-elliptic, or beltlike-lanceolate, 8–17 × 1–6 cm, thinly leathery, becoming submembranous, glabrous, lateral veins 7-paired, slightly prominent abaxially, slightly convex after drying, connected at 5–8 mm from margin, base cuneate, margin flat, apex acute. Inflorescences terminal, umbellate, 6–9-flowered, glabrous; bracts linear, 5–7 mm; pedicels 5–10 mm. Sepals ovate, ca. 2 mm, glabrous. Petals ca. 10 mm. Stamens 7–8 mm. Ovary glabrous; carpels 3 or 4; ovules 4–6 in each carpel. Style ca. 3 mm. Capsules 1–4, ellipsoid or occasionally narrowly cylindric, 1.5–3(–4) × 1.4–1.7 cm, glabrous, with 3 prominently anguled abaxial sutures, dehiscing by 3 or 4 valves; pericarp yellow adaxially, thinly leathery, not horizontally striate; pedicel thick and short, ca. 1 cm; stipe 2–3 mm. Seeds usually 8 or 9(–18) in total, in 2 rows per placenta, red, becoming yellow-red after drying, compressed rounded, ca. 6 mm; funicle ca. 3 mm. Fl. Mar–May, fr. May–Oct.

Forests, thickets, valleys, slopes, stream sides; 600--1800 m. W Guangdong, S Guangxi, SE Guizhou, SW Hainan, SE Sichuan, S Yunnan.