Shrub or tree, 2-15 m tall, or thorny liana; stems and older branches some-times armed; branches long, arching, densely short-pilose, mostly unarmed at the flowering tips; branchlets slender or stout, often spinose, obtusely tetragonal, densely tomentose with short and appressed yellowish tomentum, glabrate in age; spines borne in opposite or subopposite pairs just above the leaf-axils, divergent, 5-10 mm long, stout, and ampliate basally, very sharp-pointed, sometimes slightly recurved at the apex; leaf-scars usually borne on definitely raised sterigmata ca. 1 mm long. Leaves opposite, subopposite, or ternate, elliptic or lanceolate-elliptic to lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 3-8.5 cm long, 1.1-4.5 cm wide, apically acute or subacuminate to narrowly long-acuminate, basally acute or acuminate to obtuse, the margin entire or subentire to distinctly serrulate near the middle or above but not to the apex, often subrevolute, firmly chartaceous or subcoriaceous, dark-green and very shiny above, somewhat lighter beneath, often nigrescent in drying, above tomentose-pubescent along the larger veins and occasionally on the lamina or only obscurely puberulous, glabrescent in age, densely to lightly short-pubescent beneath, especially along the venation or toward the base of the blade, midrib and secondary veins impressed above, sharply-prominent beneath, prominently joinedl in many loops near the margins beneath; petioles slender, 5-17 mm long, varying from densely spreading-pubescent or tomentose when young to sparsely scattered pilose in age, the hairs ochraceous. Inflorescences axillary and terminal, 2 or 3 per upper node, abundant at the ends of the branchlets, racemose, nutant, racemes many-flowered, mostly simple, widely spreading, 5-13 cm long and 1-2.5 cm wide, the axillary racemes becoming 20 cm long in fruit, the terminal raceme elongating to 30 cm; peduncles 1-3 cm long, the rachis slender, densely ochra-ceous-pubescent or sordid-tomentose like the branchlets, occasionally with 1 or 2 pairs of short branches 3-6 cm long near the base, each subtended by a pair of large foliaceous bracts resembling the leaves but only 1-4 cm long and 4-15 mm wide, foliaceous bractlets, subtending each pedicel, 5-8 mm long, 2-3 mm wide, long-acuminate apically, often persisting in fruit; pedicels slender, 1-4 mm long becoming to 10 mm long in fruit, densely yellowish-tomentose; calyx tubular, 6-S8 mm long and 4 mm wide, densely short pubescent or pilose, 5-costate, lighter between the ribs toward the apex, the rim distinctly 5-toothed, the teeth long and slender, subulate-tipped; corolla hypocrateriform, bluish or lavender to light-purple or white, ca. 1.5 cm long, puberulent; fruiting-calyx obvolute, puberulent or eventually glabrate. Fruit pale-yellow or orange, ca. 1 cm long and wide.
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