Tall shrub, 4 m high, with reddish brown bark. Leaves simple, alternate, sessile, ovate with somewhat auriculate base, 3-5 mm long 1-1.5 mm broad, acuminate. Racemes lateral, vernal, 24 cm long c. 5 mm broad. Flowers pinkish, tetra and pentamerous but more often tetramerous. Bracts longer than pedicel, trullate ovate, acuminate with a diaphanous blunt end, apex subobtuse, membranous at the margin, c. 2 mm long, c. 1 mm broad, pedicel c. 1 mm long. Calyx fused at the base, outer sepals acute, inner obtuse, ovate, denticulate, membranous at the margin, c. 1.5 mm long, 1 mm broad. Petals oblong, obovate, somewhat parabolic, 2-2.25 (-2.5) mm long, 1 mm broad, persistent, rarely subpersistent. Stamens 4 or 5 (depending upon tetra or pentamerous flowers), 3.54 mm long, filaments filiform confluent with the disc lobe, (epilophic disc), anthers 1 mm long, ovate, apiculate, Stigmas 3, somewhat club shaped, ovary conic. Capsule trigonous, c. 4 mm long, c. 2 mm broad.

Fl. Per.: May.

Holotype: Constantinople s.n. 1822 Costagne 24 (G.DC).

Distribution: Turkey, Greece, Yogoslavia, Albania, Italy & Spain, introduced elsewhere.

This taxon is perhaps introduced in Pakistan.