This is an erect, fast-growing, moderately branched, slightly aromatic shrub, reaching up to 2.5 m tall with a tendency to scramble. It becomes woody with age and has striking, white, smooth bark. It has fibrous roots. Branches are first square and green, becoming rounded and up to 30 mm in diameter at the base; the younger branches have glandular hairs. The light green, egg-shaped leaves (heart-shaped at the base) are spreading and are arranged in opposite pairs. The petioles are 10-24 mm. The leaf blade is 40-65 X 30-40 mm, the margin is shallowly saw-toothed with a prominent midrib and parallel veins; the surface is sparsely glandular-hairy, becoming hairless and shiny; the tip is acute.

The flowers occur in short racemes up to 40 mm long, borne in the leaf axils. Each raceme consists of 3-8 flowers. Bracts are leaf-like and ovate-lanceolate, about 15 X 8 mm and deciduous. The base of each flower is covered by a pair of firm, purplish, mottled, protective bracteoles, 25 X 16 mm. The glandular-hairy (sticky) bracteoles are egg-shaped, concave and enclose the young flower. The bracteoles soon become dry and grey, but persist on the branches. The flowers (corolla) consist of a 30 mm long, yellowish green, curved tube, 5-lobed at the end and 25 mm in diameter; the lobes are red, oblong and spreading, the stamens are fused to the throat, but free for about 10 mm and the anthers are about 5 mm long, are positioned at the mouth of the flower or protrude slightly. The smooth seed capsules are about 12 mm long.