Shrubs or small trees, 5–8 m tall. Branchlets dark purple when young, purplish brown to blackish brown when old, slightly cottony-hairy when young, glabrous when old, with conspicuous grayish white oblong lenticels; buds ovoid, (0.8–) 1–1.5(–2) cm, apex ± obtuse; scales brown, suborbicular or broadly ovate, glabrous. Leaves simple; petiole to 1.8 cm, glabrous; leaf blade grayish green abaxially, light green adaxially, elliptic-obovate or obovate-elliptic, 10–18 × 5–9 cm, lateral veins 14–20 pairs, nearly parallel and terminating in marginal teeth, raised abaxially and impressed adaxially, both surfaces glabrous or abaxially cottony-hairy in vein axils, base cuneate to subrounded, margin crenate-serrate or lobed, apex acuminate. Compound corymbs terminal on branchlets, 4–7 × 9–13 cm, many flowered; rachis and pedicels cottony-hairy, subglabrous when old, with conspicuous lenticels. Pedicel 5–8 mm. Flowers 5–8 mm. Hypanthium campanulate, abaxially tomentose. Sepals triangular, ca. 2 mm and ca. as broad, apex acute. Petals broadly ovate or suborbicular, ca. 3 mm and ca. as broad, apex obtuse. Stamens 20, ca. 3.5 mm. Styles 3 or 4, connate at base, ca. as long as stamens, glabrous. Fruit dark reddish brown, ovoid, ovoid-globose, or subglobose, (1.5–)2–3 × (1–) 1.5–2 mm, 3- or 4-loculed, with dense rusty lenticels, with persistent revolute sepals; seeds brown, obovoid, compressed, 4–6 mm. Fl. Apr–May, fr. Jul–Aug.

Mountain valleys, river sides, stream sides, rocky forests on slopes, cliffs; 1200--2700 m. Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, N Yunnan.