Trees 10--20 m tall. Trunk to 40 cm d.b.h. Bark black. Branches brown, glabrous; branchlets ridged. Winter buds oblong-ovate, rusty puberulous. Petiole 5--10 mm, apically narrowly winged; leaf blade lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, (7--)10--14 X 3--5 cm, thinly leathery, base cuneate, apex acuminate, lateral veins 7--10 per side, very slender, and ± raised on both surfaces, reticulate veinlets slightly raised and almost invisible. Male flowers in 2--8-flowered cymes; peduncle very short or absent; calyx tubular, 6--8 mm, glabrous, teeth 4; corolla white or pale yellow, tubular, 1.5--2.6 cm, tube 0.8--1.4 cm, lobes 7--12 mm; stamens 12. Female flowers 1 or 2; peduncle and pedicel very short, rusty puberulous; calyx lobes 4 or 5, reflexed, outside subglabrous, inside rusty furfuraceous; corolla lobes 4, pyramidal in bud; staminodes 8; ovary glabrous; styles 4 or 5, base connate. Fruiting calyx 4- or 5-angular, discoid, lobes 4 or 5 and undulately plicate. Berries black when mature, depressed globose, 2.5--3 cm in diam., glabrous, shiny. Seeds tawny-brown, ovate, compressed, ca. 1 cm. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jul-Oct.

* Valleys or along streams, dense broadleaved mixed forests, open woods, thickets on plains, shaded thickets at mountain summits; 500--1800 m. S Yunnan