Shrubs 0.5-2 m tall, young branchlets, leaves, and inflorescences with dense short grayish yellow, rarely brown, verticillate and stellate hairs. Branches brownish, glabrous, scattered lenticellate. Leaves opposite; petiole 4-12 mm, pilose; leaf blade ovate, ovate-oblong to oblong, 6-10 × 3.5-8 cm, papery or thinly leathery, abaxial surface minutely tomentose, adaxial surface glabrous, lateral veins 4 or 5 pairs, base obtuse to rounded, apex acute. Racemes 2-5-fascicled, axillary, sometimes at leafless nodes, 3-5(-7)-flowered; peduncle and rachis 1.5-5 mm, brownish or grayish yellow tomentose. Flowers densely alternate; bracts ovate, ca. 1 mm. Pedicel 1-1.5 mm. Calyx pyriform, 2-3 mm, limb annular, ciliate. Mature bud tubular, 1.5-2 cm, tip ellipsoid. Corolla red, slightly curved and inflated, tomentose, lobes lanceolate, ca. 5 mm, reflexed. Style red; stigma subcapitate. Berry pyriform, 8-10 × 3.5-4 mm, pilose, base tapering into stalk. Fl. and fr. Jan-Dec.

Recorded hosts include species of Caprifoliaceae, Coriariaceae, Fagaceae, Moraceae, Rosaceae, Rutaceae, and Tiliaceae.

Forests, thickets, mountain slopes, valleys; 1100-2200 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [India].