Shrubs or trees, 2-14 m tall. Young branches grayish brown; current year branchlets reddish brown, 4-ribbed, glabrous; terminal buds glabrous. Petiole ca. 5 mm, glabrous; leaf blade oblong, oblong-elliptic, oblong-lanceolate, or oblong-oblanceolate, 5-10 × 1.5-3.5 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green and shiny, both surfaces glabrous, midvein abaxially elevated and adaxially impressed, secondary veins 8-10 on each side of midvein, abaxially raised, and adaxially visible to slightly raised, base cuneate, margin serrulate, apex acuminate. Flowers axillary, solitary or to 3 in a cluster. Pedicel ca. 2 mm, glabrous. Male flowers: bracteoles ovate, ca. 1 mm, apex mucronulate; sepals suborbicular, 2-2.5 mm, glabrous, apex rounded; petals oblong-obovate, ca. 4 mm; stamens ca. 15; anthers locellate; pistillode glabrous. Female flowers: bracteoles and sepals similar to those of male flowers but slightly smaller; petals oblong, ca. 2.5 mm; ovary ovoid, glabrous, 3-loculed; style ca. 2 mm, apically 3-lobed. Fruit purplish black when mature, globose, ca. 4 mm in diam. Seeds brown, orbicular-reniform, shiny. Fl. Nov-Dec, fr. May-Aug.

● Dense forests or thickets; 500-1900 m. N and SW Guangdong, Guangxi, N Guizhou, S Henan, W Hubei, S and W Hunan, SW Jiangxi, E Sichuan, SE Yunnan.