Shrubs scandent. Branchlets brownish to grayish brown, gray tomentose when young, gradually glabrescent, with sparse, curved minute prickles or nearly unarmed. Leaves simple; petiole (0.3–)1–2 cm, tomentose, usually unarmed; stipules caducous, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 0.8–1.4 cm × 2.5–5 mm, membranous, appressed villous; blade oblong-ovate or broadly ovate-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 6–12 × (1–)3–5.5 cm, lateral veins 6–9 pairs, prominent abaxially, papery, abaxially densely gray to yellowish gray appressed tomentose, adaxially glabrous, base rounded to subtruncate, margin unevenly incised coarsely sharply serrate or sparsely so, rarely doubly serrate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences terminal, racemes, 4–8 cm, several to more than 10-flowered; rachis and pedicels densely gray to yellowish gray tomentose-villous; bracts caducous, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 0.8–1.2 cm × 2–4 mm, membranous, villous. Pedicel 7–10 mm. Calyx abaxially densely gray to yellowish gray tomentose-villous; tube pelviform; sepals triangular-ovate to lanceolate, 8–10 × 3–5 mm, margin entire, apex acuminate. Petals white, obovate, 5–7 × 4–6 mm, both surfaces puberulous. Stamens many, shorter than sepals, glabrous or hairy when young, or only anthers slightly villous; filaments inflated at base. Pistils slightly longer than or nearly as long as stamens; ovary glabrous; style glabrous. Aggregate fruit purplish black at maturity, semiglobose, 8–10 mm in diam., glabrous; pyrenes slightly rugose. Fl. May–Jun, fr. Jul–Aug.

Forests, bamboo forest margins, thickets, gravelly slopes; 1000--3100 m. Sichuan, Yunnan.