Shrubs or small trees to 12 m, semievergreen. Branchlets terete, pubescent when young, glabrescent or velutinous. Petiole 0.5-2.5 cm, glabrous, puberulent or velutinous; leaf blade elliptic-lanceolate to ovate-elliptic, 5-15 × (2-)3-6(-8) cm, papery, glabrescent, sometimes midrib only puberulent adaxially, or velutinous, base rounded to cuneate, apex acute to long acuminate; primary veins (6-)9-15 on each side of midrib, slightly prominent. Panicles usually terminal, 7-20 × 7-16(-24) cm; rachis angular, particularly in fruit. Flowers subsessile. Calyx 1-1.5 mm. Corolla 3.5-5 mm; tube ca. as long as lobes. Stamens reaching apex of corolla lobes; anthers 1-2.5 mm. Fruit blue-black or black, ellipsoid or subglobose, 7-10 × 4-6 mm, usually slightly curved.

Valleys; 600-3400 m. Hubei, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [India, Nepal]