Shrubs or trees, 1.5-8(-12) m tall. Young branches grayish brown; current year branchlets slightly 2-ribbed, glabrous; terminal buds glabrous or rarely scale margins ciliolate. Petiole 3-6 mm, glabrous; leaf blade obovate, elliptic, or oblong-elliptic, 5-9 × 2-3.5 cm, leathery, abaxially pale yellowish green, adaxially dark green and shiny, both surfaces glabrous, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 9-11 on each side of midvein, slender, and visible on both surfaces, base broadly cuneate to cuneate, margin serrulate, apex shortly acuminate to acute. Flowers axillary, solitary or to 3 in a cluster. Pedicel ca. 1.5 mm, glabrous. Male flowers: bracteoles ovate-orbicular; sepals suborbicular, 1.5-2 mm, membranous, outside pubescent, margin ciliolate, apex rounded and retuse with a mucronate tip; petals oblong to ovate, ca. 4 mm; stamens 13-15; anthers not locellate; pistillode glabrous. Female flowers: bracteoles and sepals similar to those of male flowers; petals ovate 2-2.5 mm; ovary globose, glabrous, 3-loculed; styles 3, distinct, ca. 1 mm. Fruit bluish black when mature, globose, 3-4 mm in diam. Fl. Oct-Nov, fr. Jun-Aug.

● Forests or thickets on mountain slopes or in valleys; 800-2600 m. Anhui, C and N Fujian, NW Guangdong, N Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan, W Hubei, W Hunan, N Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, NE and SE Yunnan.