Shrubs, rarely climbers, 1.5-3 m tall; branchlets and petioles gray-brown, strigose or pubescent. Stipules linear, 0.7-1 cm; petiole 1-8 cm; leaf blade obovate to oblanceolate, 5-17 × 3.5-8 cm, papery, 3-veined, basal-lateral pair reaching apex, anastomosing with basal pair of secondary veins, secondary veins 2 or 3(or 4) pairs, adaxially dark green, often rugose, abaxially light green, pubescent, or gray-white tomentose, strigose on veins, base rounded or obtuse, rarely broadly cuneate or subcordate, margin entire in basal 1/3, coarsely serrate apically, apex cuspidate, mucronate, caudate, or rarely emarginate with a mucro. Inflorescences in axils of current and older branches, 2 or 3 times dichotomously branched, 0.8-1.5 cm; glomerules 3-4 mm in diam. Male flowers: perianth lobes (2 or)3, ca. 0.7 mm; rudimentary ovary clavate. Female flowers ca. 1 mm. Achene ovoid, 1-1.2 mm, smooth, surrounded by a white-fleshy discoid cupule at base. Fl. Dec-Feb, fr. May-Aug.

Mixed forests, thickets, near streams, often on limestone; 200-1400 m. W Guangdong, SW Guangxi, S Hunan, SE Yunnan [N Vietnam].