An evergreen shrub 4 to 6 ft high, with quite glabrous young shoots, bearing the leaves in a cluster at the end. Leaves obovate to oblanceolate, tapered at both ends, but more gradually towards the base, 3 to 5 in. long, 3⁄4 to 11⁄2 in. wide, with entire, membranous margins, quite glabrous on both surfaces, dark green above, pale beneath; stalk 1⁄2 in. or less long. Flowers fragrant, dull yellow, produced singly or in few-flowered racemes in the leaf-axils of the young shoots in May; corolla 1⁄3 to 1⁄2 in. long, cylindrical at the base, dividing at the mouth in five oblong, recurved lobes, 1⁄6 in. long; flower-stalks usually 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. long, glabrous. Fruit a glabrous, woody capsule, 5⁄8 in. long.
Native of the warmer parts of China; introduced by Fortune from Hong Kong in 1845, and reintroduced by Wilson from near Ichang in 1908. It has never become established in cultivation.