Trees to 15 m tall, deciduous. Branchlets and inflorescence rachises glabrous, with prickles. Leaves 11-27-foliolate; leaflet blades opposite, narrowly lanceolate but subovate basally on rachis, 7-18 × 2-6 cm, abaxially grayish green or glaucescent, oil glands numerous, midvein adaxially impressed, secondary veins 11-16 on each side of midvein, base symmetrically or subobliquely rounded, margin crenate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences terminal, many flowered. Flowers 5-merous, subsessile. Perianth in 2 series. Sepals broadly triangular, ca. 0.8 mm. Petals pale yellowish white, ca. 2.5 mm. Male flowers: stamens 5; rudimentary gynoecium disciform, 2- or 3-lobed. Female flowers (3 or)4-carpelled. Fruit pedicel 1-3 mm; follicles pale reddish brown but pale gray to brownish gray when dry, ca. 4.5 mm in diam., oil glands numerous, impressed when dry, apex not beaked. Seeds ca. 4 mm in diam. Fl. Aug-Sep, fr. Oct-Dec.

Upland thickets; 300-1500 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, S Jiangxi, SE Sichuan, Taiwan, SE Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan (including Bonin and Ryukyu Islands), Korea, Philippines].