Shrubs dioecious, 3-5 m tall, unarmed. Branchlets pale gray-brown, scabrous or shiny. Leaves opposite or subopposite, or fascicled on short shoots; stipules lanceolate, shorter than or nearly equaling petiole; petiole 2-7 mm, puberulent; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially green, elliptic, rarely obovate, oblanceolate-elliptic, or oblong, 2.5-9 × 1-3.5 cm, abaxially sparsely or clustered hairy on veins and vein axils, rarely glabrous, or densely pubescent on veins, adaxially sparsely puberulent, lateral veins 4 or 5(or 6) pairs, prominent abaxially, slightly impressed adaxially, abaxially often with shallow areola in vein axils, base cuneate, margin inconspicuously undulate or crenulate, or crenate-serrate, apex acute or acuminate, rarely subrounded. Flowers unisexual, 4-merous. Pedicels 2-4 mm. Petals present. Male flowers few. Female flowers few- to 10-fascicled at apices of short shoots, puberulent; style 2-fid or cleft to half. Drupe globose, ca. 5 mm in diam., with persistent calyx tube at base, with 1 or 2 stones; fruiting pedicel 3-6 mm, sparsely puberulent. Seeds black or purple-black, abaxially with short furrow at base, upper part fissured. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jun-Oct.

● Understories of forests and thickets, thickets on slopes; 900-3300 m. Anhui, SE Gansu, Guizhou, W Hubei, Jiangxi, S Shanxi, Sichuan, Xizang, NW Yunnan, Zhejiang.