Shrub, sometimes climbing, 1½-2½(-3½) m; twigs straight, terete, with minute, stellate, ferruginous hairs, glabrescent; internodes 2-5 cm. Thorns patent, straight or slightly curved upwards, 1—3(-4) mm. Leaves on lateral branches mostly distichous, more or less firmly herbaceous, elliptic, when young with minute, stellate, fulvous-ferruginous indument giving it a farinaceous aspect, glabrescent, (1.2-)1.7-2.2(-3) times as long as wide, often ovate, sometimes obovate, 5-9.5(-15) by 2½-4½(-6½) cm; base rounded to blunt, top acuminate with a mostly blunt tip 0.5-1.5 cm long; nerves yellow to light-brown, midrib sometimes sulcate above; nerves c. 5 pairs, veins reticulate; petiole c. 0.5 cm, densely greyish brown tomentellous. Flowers 2-4, serial. Pedicels (1-)1.5-2(-2.5) cm, thin, densely hairy, glabrescent except for the somewhat broadened top. Buds globular, 4-5 mm diam. Sepals elliptic-ovate, 4-5 by 2.5-4 mm, minutely hairy outside, 3-nerved, outer pair (especially the posterior one surrounding the disk) slightly larger and more obtuse than the inner. Petals elliptic to oblong, 6-8 by 2-4 mm, very thin, on both sides fioccose-hairy, white tinged pale yellow, green, or violet, upper pair mostly slightly smaller than the lower pair, the base thickened with a mostly yellow-coloured, later red honey-guide. Disk bilobed, fleshy, roundish, up to 2 mm diam. Stamens c. 20, 15-23 mm long, filaments pale, anthers 1 mm, sordidly blue. Gynophore 18-20(-25) mm; ovary 1 by 0.75 mm, stigma obtusely conical, 0.5 mm high, both glabrous. In fruit neither the pedicel, nor the gynophore much incrassate. Fruit about globular, 8-12 mm diam.; pericarp minutely rugose when dry, glossy, black when ripe (once reported red), glabrous. Seeds 2-6, 6 by 3-4 by 2 mm, smooth, glossy brown.
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A shrub. It can be climbing. It grows up to 3 m high. New growth is hairy. The leaves are oblong with slightly curved thorns. The flowers occur as 2-4 in a row. They are yellowish or greenish-white. The fruit are round and abut 1 cm across. They are black when ripe. They have 2-6 seeds.
In the lowlands and hills in dry places, in teak forests, brushwood, hedges, on limestone hills, fairly common in Java, up to c. 850 m. Fl. especially Sept., no flowers collected Febr.-May; fr. July-Febr.
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Lowlands and hills in dry locations; living fences; brushwood, and teak forest; at elevations from sea-level to 850 metres.
It is a tropical plant. It grows in teak forests between sea level and 700 m above sea level.
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