Trees ca. 15 m tall; bark gray. Branchlets yellowish, leaf scars and lenticels very prominent, pubescent when young, glabrescent; buds brownish woolly. Petiole brown, 2-4(-6.5) cm, pubescent; leaf blade ovate to broadly ovate, 5-16 X 4-8 cm, papery, abaxially bluish green mealy, adaxially shiny green and glabrous, base cuneate to truncate, apex short acuminate to acute; veins 3 or 4 pairs, abaxially prominently elevated. Inflorescences terminal, cymose paniculate; peduncle 6-8 cm, yellowish pubescent; bracts subsessile, leaflike, ovate-lanceolate to ovate, 0.8-1 X 0.5-2.5 cm, gray pubescent, with circular gland patches. Calyx 1.5-1.8 cm, 2-lipped, outside pubescent and glandular, accrescent and spreading in fruit; teeth 5, ovate-triangular. Corolla pinkish white, red, or rarely yellowish, darker in center, 3.5-4.5 cm, tube ca. 2.5 cm. Stamens sparsely glandular. Ovary pubescent. Fruit ovoid, 2-2.2 X 1.5 cm, as long as fruiting calyx. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jun-Sep.

Fine timber.

Open grassy hillsides, sparse forests; 300-500 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, S Jiangxi [Vietnam]