Glabrous shrub or small tree with widely spreading low branches, 2–8 m. tall; outer bark peeling in pale papery scrolls from the green under-bark; slash smooth, creamy white; exudate not noted but apparently neither copious nor strongly scented; branchlets grey with sparse round lenticels ± 0.5 mm. in diameter; the larger branchlets do not end in spines though sparse short (10–25 mm.) lateral spines are usually (perhaps always) present.. Leaves with a petiole 4–20 mm. long even when clustered loosely together on short shoots; lateral leaflets usually present, lanceolate, entire, 1–9(–22) mm. long, 0.5–4(–10) mm. wide;terminal leaflet ovate-acuminate, rounded or broadly cuneate at the base, usually ± 6 cm. long and 4 cm. wide, occasionally up to 9 × 5 cm.; nerves prominent beneath, 5–7 principal lateral nerves on each side, ultimate network distinct; margin cartilaginous, sometimes entire but usually with numerous very minute serrations whose apical side is only ± 0.1 mm. long.. Immature flowers blackish purple, single in the axils of clustered short-shoot leaves on pedicels up to 1.5 mm. long; calyx 1.8 mm. long including triangular 0.4 mm. teeth; corolla ± 3 mm. long.. Fruits 2–3 together at the tips of short-shoots on stalks 1–4 mm. long; drupe subglobose, 11.5 mm. (including a 0.5 mm. beak) × 12 × (5.5 + 8) mm.; pericarp 2-valved, fleshy, 0.8–1.0 mm. thick; pseudaril red, covering the lower part of the stone and with 4 triangular lobes reaching almost to its tip; stone black, minutely but markedly verrucose (resembling that of C. sphaerocarpa), ± 7.5 × 6 × (3.5 + 4) mm., with 2 rather large apical pits; sterile locule strongly humped distally.. Fig. 5/18–20, p.25.
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