Tree or shrub up to 1.5 m high, dioecious, armed with spines up to 8 cm long; bark ashen-white with longitudinal ridges and fissures, strongly lenticellate. Leaves alternate; blade soft to coriaceous, obovate to rhomboid-elliptic, seldom orbicular, 2.2-9.5 cm long, 1.5-5.5 cm broad, glabrous, sometimes puberulous on veins, venation very prominent on both sides, 3-5-veined from the base, apex acute to emarginate, base cuneate to obtuse, margin entire to sub-undulate; petiole 2-6 mm long, glabrous. Male flowers light green, in fascicles of 2-10; calyx 4-6-lobed; lobes 1.5-2.5 mm long, obovate-rhomboid, pubescent; stamens 9-20; filaments 3 mm long; nectaries hairy. Female flowers yellow-green, solitary or in fascicles of 2 or 3; pedicel 3-5 mm long; calyx 4-6-lobed; lobes 3-5 mm long, elliptic-lanceolate to obovate, pubescent, sometimes fringed with gland-tipped segments, acute, erect or somewhat recurved; disc hairy; ovary lobed, unilocular, placentas 2, each with 1 ovule; styles 2. Fruit oblong, 1.5 cm in diam., glabrous, orange or red with white spots when ripe. Seeds 2, woolly, 0.9 cm long.
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A small to medium sized tree. It grows to 15 m high. The bark is grey to yellowish-brown. It is smooth but develops fine cracks along its length with age. The young branches have slender, straight spines. These can be 8 cm long. The leaves are oval or nearly round. They are 2-9 cm long by 1.3-6 cm wide. The edges roll under. The leaf stalk is stout and 2 mm long. The flowers are very small and white or pale yellow. They occur in clusters in the axils of leaves. Often there are 2-6 in a cluster. The fruit is round and about 1.5 cm long. It is fleshy and bright orange to red with white flecks. The fruit are edible.
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