Shrubs, 0.5-3 m tall; stems glabrous. Petiole 0.5-3.5 cm, glabrous; leaf blade drying papery to membranous, yellowish green, often pale below, elliptic, elliptic-oblong, oblanceolate, or obovate, 5.5-29 × 0.8-10.5 cm, glabrous on both surfaces, base cuneate to obtuse, margins flat, apex acuminate or acute; secondary veins 5-10 pairs, thinly prominulous adaxially, free or forming an incomplete looping submarginal vein, without domatia; stipules persistent on apical nodes, triangular to ovate or elliptic, shortly fused around stem, 2.5-6.7 mm (including lobes), glabrous, 2-lobed, lobes linear, 0.5-1.2 mm, often tipped with a caducous gland. Inflorescences terminal, few flowered, cymose, glabrous, pedunculate; peduncle 1-2.5 cm; branched portion corymbiform, 1-5 × 1.5-4 cm, branched to 1-3 orders; bracts triangular, 0.2-1 mm; pedicels 1.5-4 mm. Flowers pedicellate in dichotomous cymules of 3-7. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium portion obconic, ca. 1 mm; limb ca. 1 mm, lobed shallowly or to 1/2; lobes triangular. Corolla white or pale green, tubular-funnelform, glabrous outside; tube 1.5-2 mm, villous in throat; lobes ovate-triangular, 1.5-2.5 mm. Drupes red or perhaps ultimately black, subglobose or ellipsoid, 7-13 × 4-9 mm, with pedicels or stipes to 10 mm; pyrenes smooth or shallowly 3- or 4-ridged. Fl. Jan-Jul, fr. Jun-Jan of following year.

W. C. Chen (in FRPS 71(2): 52. 1999) described the fruit as black at maturity, and the dried fruit seen have this color; but it remains to be confirmed in living fruit by field observations. Some other Psychotria species have fruit that are red at maturity but dry black, while some species have fruit that turn red then ultimately black when ripe.

Forests in ravines, hill slopes; 100-2700 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Yunnan [Vietnam].