The tree is of a considerable height, upright, much branched, and of a beautiful appearance when the flowers are come to maturity, or rather about perfecting their seed, as in the specimen here figured. Every part is quite smooth. Branches opposite, round, slightly angular at the top. Leaves opposite, on footstalks, ternate. Leaflets sessile, nearly equal, lanceolate, obtuse, serrated, veiny, shining, paler beneath. Stipulæ none. Panicles terminal, first oppositely, and then alternately branched, with a small pointed glutinous bractea at the base of each partial flower-stalk. Flowers at first expanding small, but the calyx afterwards becomes much enlarged, whitish, tinged with red, and all their parts continue permanent till the fruit is ripe. The Calyx is inferior, five-cleft; its segments lanceolate, acute, slightly ribbed; its margin at the base of the segments surrounded with a ring bearing the petals and stamina, as in icosandrous plants. Petals alternate with its segments, at first equal to them in length, then much shorter, irregularly and unequally pinnatifid; their divisions linear and acute. Stamina shorter than the petals, awl-shaped. Antheræ roundish, of two oval cells, and with a spur at their base. Germen in the bottom of the calyx, globular, ten-ribbed. Style awl-shaped, short. Stigma cloven, acute. Capsule in form like the germen, small, with a coriaceous covering, originally two-celled, but one side seems always abortive, and the seed in the other pushes the partition from the centre.
