Shrubs or trees, 3--20 m tall, deciduous. Trunk to 30 cm d.b.h., bark peeling off in thin pieces, surface black. Young shoots and winter buds puberulous, inflorescences and flowers tomentose, otherwise glabrous. Winter buds conical, ca. 2 mm. Petiole ca. 1 cm; leaf blade elliptic, 5--11.5 X 2.5--4.3 cm, thinly leathery, abaxially drying brown, adaxially glossy dark green and drying grayish brown, base cuneate or obtuse, margin sometimes slightly undulate, apex acuminate to obtuse, lateral veins 4--8 per side, reticulate veinlets very slender and inconspicuous. Male flowers congested, cymose, nodding; pedicel ca. 2 mm; calyx lobes 4, brownish puberulent; corolla glabrous, white, urn-shaped, ca. 7 mm; corolla lobes 4, spreading, ovate, ca. 2 X 2 mm; stamens 16--20, conspicuously hairy. Female flowers solitary; pedicel ca. 2 mm; calyx lobes 4, divided to about middle; corolla nearly urn-shaped, ca. 7 mm; corolla lobes 4, ca. 3 X 3 mm, outside glabrous, inside densely brown sericeous; staminodes 6. Fruiting pedicel ca. 3 mm, stout. Fruiting calyx ± square, 6--8 mm wide, outside densely puberulent, inside sericeous; lobes 4, spreading, triangular. Berries yellow, globose, 1.5--2.2(--2.9) cm in diam., 8-locular, glabrous, apex sometimes apiculate. Seeds often ca. 4, glossy dark olive-brown, laterally compressed, (8--)10--14 X 5--7 X ca. (2--)3 mm. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Nov.

Forest slopes, ravines, along streams; (0--)100--1000(--1400) m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan, Vietnam]