Slender, shrubby, 2–3 ft. high with elongate, virgate or subsarmentose, silky-tomentose branches.Leaves alternate, oblanceolate or narrow-obovate, minutely apiculate, gradually narrowed into the petiole, entire, silky and at first silvery, with petiole 1–2 in. long, 1/3 to over 1/2 in. broad. Flowers 1/4 in. diameter in much-contracted often many-flowered bracteate cymes from every axil, usually but little exceeding the petiole. Perianth silky-tomentose, lobes lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate acuminate, glabrous within. Stamens 50–60. Ovary 5–4-celled; styles radiate. Capsule obpyramidal, 5–4-valved, cells 1–2-seeded; seeds pendulous from the apex of the thickened central axis, estrophiolate but 1/2 girt by the funicle. (Ovary and capsule, Dr. Welwitsch .)