Shrubs or trees, 2-15 m tall; branches terete to subquadrangular, tomentulose, pilosulous, or hirsute, often with pubescence of two or more types. Leaves opposite; petiole 0.5-3.5 cm, densely ferruginous hirtellous or -pilosulous; blade drying papery, broadly elliptic, elliptic-oblong, ovate, or oblong-lanceolate, 7-26 × 4-14 cm, adaxially sparsely hirtellous, hispidulous, or scaberulous on lamina and moderately to densely tomentulose to strigillose along principal veins, abaxially moderately to densely hirtellous to pilosulous, base acute to obtuse, apex shortly to abruptly acuminate; secondary veins 8-12 pairs; stipules persistent or sometimes deciduous, obovate to pandurate, 5-12 × 5-12 mm, hispid, apex spreading to reflexed, rounded. Inflorescences paniculate, pyramidal in outline, 10-20 × 10-20 cm, branched to 2-4 orders, densely tomentulose, pilosulous, and/or hirtellous, sessile and tripartite or pedunculate; peduncle 1-4 cm; bracts linear-lanceolate to spatulate, 1-4 mm. Flowers sessile or subsessile. Calyx densely grayish pilose, -strigose, -hirtellous, -tomentose, or subglabrous (subsp. pilosa); hypanthium obconic, ca. 0.8 mm; limb lobed nearly to base; lobes triangular to lanceolate, ca. 1 mm. Corolla white, tubular-funnelform, glabrous outside; tube 2.5-3 mm, inside upper part and throat white hirsute; lobes oblong to elliptic, ca. 1 mm. Anthers elliptic, ca. 0.8 mm, subsessile, partially exserted. Stigma 2-lobed, ca. 0.3 mm. Capsules subglobose, 1-2 mm in diam., densely strigillose to strigose. Fl. Jan-May, fr. Apr-Oct.

Cowan discussed in detail the wide morphological variability in this species, in both vegetative and flower characters.

Thickets, forests, or forest margins on mountains or hill slopes, in ravines, or at streamsides; below 100-1200 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Taiwan, Yunnan [Vietnam].