Shrubs to 4 m tall. Branchlets purple-brown, longitudinally striate, sparsely puberulent, glabrescent; old branches black-brown, irregularly fissured, glabrous. Stipules linear-lanceolate, caducous; petiole 5-12 mm, stout, slightly puberulent; leaf blade oblong or oblong-elliptic, 3-5 × 1-1.8 cm, subleathery, both surfaces glabrous, or abaxially barbellate at vein axils, lateral veins 5 or 6 pairs, midvein and lateral veins prominent abaxially, ± impressed adaxially, base broadly cuneate or subrounded, margin often revolute, shallowly serrulate, apex obtuse, shortly acute, or acuminate. Flowers yellow-green, campanulate, usually 3-5, rarely to 8, in axillary cymes; peduncles short, 2-5(-10) mm, sparsely yellow-brown puberulent. Pedicels 3-4 mm; bracts linear-lanceolate. Sepals triangular, ca. 1.5 mm, puberulent, inconspicuously 3-veined. Petals elliptic-spatulate, ca. 1 mm, apex emarginate. Ovary subglobose, glabrous; styles shortly 2-lobed. Drupe (immature) subglobose, ca. 3 mm in diam., base with shallow dish-shaped calyx tube, with 2 one-seeded stones; fruiting pedicel 4-5 mm, puberulent. Fl. Jun., fr. unknown.

Material of this species was not seen by the second author.

The new combination Frangula rhododendriphylla (Y. L. Chen & P. K. Chou) H. Yu, H. G. Ye & N. H. Xia (J. Trop. Subtrop. Bot. 16: 368. 2008) appeared after publication of the family treatment for the Flora of China.

● Summits of limestone mountains. W Guangdong (Yangchun), Guangxi (Xiangxian).