Trees, up to 15 m tall. Branchlets terete, slightly angled, longitudinally finely striate, black-brown when dry, glabrous, few lenticellate, lenticels brownish, orbicular to oblong; young branchlets conspicuously compressed, angled, brownish puberulent. Buds ovoid to narrowly ovoid, 2-5 mm; bud scales very densely yellowish brown tomentose. Leaves alternate or sometimes those on upper part of branchlet subopposite; petiole 0.5-1.5 cm, sulcate adaxially, yellow-brown villous when young but glabrate when mature; leaf blade greenish opaque abaxially, green shiny adaxially, oblong or sometimes ovate-oblong, 5-13 × 2-5 cm, subleathery, sparsely puberulent when young but very glabrous when mature abaxially, glabrous adaxially, pinninerved, midrib extending to leaf apex, slightly elevated adaxially but strongly so abaxially, lateral veins 5-7 pairs, arcuate, anastomosing within leaf margin, ± conspicuous on both surfaces, axils of lateral veins inconspicuously dome-shaped abaxially, transverse veins and veinlets reticulate, foveolate on both surfaces, base truncate to subrounded, always asymmetrical on sides, apex shortly acuminate, acumen obtuse, sometimes acute or irregularly lanceolate. Panicle subterminal, 3-6 cm, 6-15-flowered, branched; branches ca. 1.5 cm, terminal one bearing a 3-flowered cyme; peduncle 1-3 cm, peduncle and rachis brownish puberulent. Pedicels 3-5 mm, densely brownish puberulent. Flowers green, up to 5 mm. Perianth sparsely brownish puberulent outside but densely so inside; perianth tube obconical, ca. 2 mm; perianth lobes 6, subequal, ovate, ca. 3 mm, acute. Fertile stamens 9, ca. 4 mm (1st and 2nd whorls) or ca. 4.5 mm (of 3rd whorl); filaments villous, those of 3rd whorl each with 2 sessile reniform glands slightly above middle; anthers of 1st and 2nd whorls ovate-oblong, ca. 2 mm, those of 3rd whorl oblong, ca. 1.6 cm, all 4-celled. Staminodes 3, ca. 2 mm, ovate-sagittate, shortly stalked; stalk villous. Ovary ovoid, ca. 1.5 × 9 mm. Fruit ca. 1.5 × 0.9 cm; perianth cup in fruit shallowly cupuliform, ca. 5 mm wide, apex ca. 6.5 mm wide, entire. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Oct.

● Thickets, forests, along water on limestone mountains; 600-1500 m. Guangxi, Guizhou, SE Yunnan.