Shrub 1–3 m. high, with spines up to c. 4 cm. long and short shoots, glabrous;stems angular, reddish- or purplish-brown and smooth when young, soon becoming dotted with pale lenticels, eventually terete, grey-brown and verrucose on account of prominent lenticels. Leaf-lamina greyish above and pale brown below when dry, 1–5 × 0·4–2·4 cm., obovate to oblanceolate-spathulate or rarely oblong to elliptic, obtuse to rounded or emarginate at the apex, with margin revolute and spinulose-denticulate except near the base or entire, cuneate or rarely rounded at the base, coriaceous, with nerves and loosely reticulate venation prominent below only; petiole 0·5–3 mm. long. Flowers 2-c. 20 in dichasial or subdichasial cymes which are solitary in axils of foliage leaves or 1–6 on short shoots; peduncle 0·7–3·5 mm. long; pedicels (1)3–5 mm. long, articulated at or near the base. Sepals 5, c. 1 mm. long, oblong to semicircular, obtuse to rounded, with margin irregularly ciliate to lacinulate. Petals 5, 2–3 mm. long, oblong to obovate, erect or ± spreading, with margin finely ciliolate. Stamen-filaments c. 2 mm. long. Disk broad, flat or slightly concave, with margin shallowly 5-lobed. Ovary cylindric-conic, 1/4–1/3-immersed in the disk, 1 1/2 times to twice as long as the style, 3-locular, with 6 ovules in each loculus; stigma subcapitate or shortly 3-lobed. Capsule brownish-red, 1·5–2·5 cm. long, obovoid, woody, with obscure raised reticulate venation, c. 12–18-seeded. Seeds reddish-brown, ± completely covered by a thin aril (yellowish when dry).