Shrubs evergreen, to 1.5 m tall. Branches grayish brown or -black or purplish red or -brown, glabrous or tomentose. Leaves alternate; petiole 1-15 mm, glabrescent; leaf blade ovate, lanceolate, elliptic, or oblanceolate, 6-16 × 1.5-4 cm, thinly leathery, membranous, or papery, both surfaces glabrous, base cuneate, apex acuminate or obtuse; veins 6-15 pairs. Inflorescences terminal, fasciculate, 3-10(-12)-flowered; peduncle ca. 2 mm, sericeous; bracts caducous, ovate, 7-15 × 3-4 mm, sparsely sericeous, apex acuminate. Flowers not fragrant; pedicel ca. 2 mm, densely sericeous. Calyx white or greenish white, sometimes flushed pink; tube narrowly funnel-shaped, (5-)10-15(-18) mm, exterior sericeous; lobes 4, ovate, 4-11 × 2-5 mm, apex acute or obtuse. Stamens 8, lower whorl inserted at middle of calyx tube, upper whorl in throat; filaments short; anthers oblong, 1-2 mm; upper ones partly exserted from calyx tube. Disk cup-shaped, margin slightly undulate to obscurely serrate. Ovary cylindric, 2-4 mm, glabrous; style very short; stigma capitate, papillose. Drupe red, ovoid-pyriform, 8-10 mm. Fl. Nov-Jan, fr. Apr-May.

The separation of the varieties of Daphne papyracea from the following three species, D. feddei , D. longituba , and D. kusei , is difficult, and the status of all these taxa needs more detailed investigation.

Forests, shrubby and herbaceous slopes; 700-3100 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan [India, Nepal].