Large, bushy shrub, often forming a dense, hemispherical mound; leaves alternate, shortly petioled, simple, entire or obscurely crenate, crowded at stem tips, lamina thick, shiny, with obtuse tips, glabrous to hairy on both surfaces, margins revolute, becoming yellow with age, leaf axils with tufts of pale hairs; flowers white to pale lilac, zygomorphic, several in axillary cymes, much shorter than leaves; bracts small; calyx 5-toothed, lobes linear-lanceolate, adnate to ovary, enlarged in fruit; petals-5, valvate, partially fused, oblique, tube split to base on upper side so that petal lobes spread into a lower lip; stamens 5, inserted at the base and alternating with corolla lobes, epigynous, anthers free or connate at base in a ring around the style; ovary 1-2 celled with 1-many ovules in each locule, style curved, filiform, stigma ciliate; fruit a fleshy, subspherical drupe, succulent, greenish-white, crowned with persistent calyx at tip; seeds stony.