Deciduous, much-branched small or medium-sized tree or sometimes shrub, (2)4–18 m. High trunk 20–100 cm. Bark pale grey or grey-brown, smooth, lenticellate, thin, in section green on the periphery and orange or buff towards the center; wood pale yellowish-brown, with bark– islets.

Branches often repeatedly dichotomously branched, pale to very dark brown, distinctly lenticellate, terete, not or slightly sulcate when dry, with protruding persistent cup-like petiole– bases; branchlets glabrous. Branches often repeatedly dichotomously branched, pale to very dark brown, distinctly lenticellate, terete, not or slightly sulcate when dry, with protruding persistent cup-like petiole– bases; branchlets glabrous. Leaves with a short, glabrous, 1–7 mm.
Long petiole; lamina dark green above, mat or dull and paler beneath, papyraceous or thinly coriaceous, membranaceous when young (in flowering branches), variable in shape and size, elliptic, narrowly elliptic, ovate, or narrowly ovate, 1·5–3(3·5) times as long as wide, 6–15 x 3–9 cm. In the shade up to 19·5 x 11 cm. Acute, acuminate, or sometimes, especially in young shoots, subcordate at the base, glabrous on both sides; two pairs of distinct mostly pale green secondary veins from or from above the base curved along the margin, not reaching the apex; tertiary venation mostly pale green, reticulate.Inflorescence in the axils of small scales at the bases of the branchlets, solitary, lax, or rather congested, 1·5–2·5 x 1–2 x branched. Peduncle, branches, and pedicels slender, glabrous.