Shrubs or small trees to 6 m tall, monoecious. Bark grayish brown, smooth. Branchlets green, brown, or purplish, variously pubescent or glabrescent. Stipules linear-lanceolate, 2-5 mm. Petiole 4-8 mm, slender, variously pubescent; leaf blade yellow-green to brownish green or brown (never blackish) when dry, ovate, ovate-oblong, or rarely lanceolate, 4-9 × 1.5-4 cm, base rounded to ± cordate or rarely broadly cuneate, margin crenate-serrate, apex acuminate to caudate-acuminate; basally 3-veined; secondary veins 2 or 3 on each side of midvein. Male inflorescences usually in proximal leaf axil of branchlets. Female or androgynous inflorescences usually distal. Male flowers: pedicellate, ca. 1 mm in diam.; tepals 5, obovate. Drupes reddish orange when mature, ± compressed, 2-3 mm in diam.; perianth persistent. Fl. Mar-Jun, fr. Sep-Oct.

The fiber is used for manufacturing ropes and paper and the seed oil is used for soaps and lubricants.

Sunny moist forests, scrub on sunny slopes, riversides, open places; 100-1100 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, S Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam; Australia, Pacific Islands].