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Leaves 3–7·5 x 2·4 cm., obovate, rounded or occasionally emarginate at apex, acute at base, serrate in distal half to rarely subentire, clustered at ends of lateral short shoots which remain hard and spiny after leaf–fall; petiole 3–14 mm. long; lamina membranous or subcoriaceous, with midrib impressed above and prominent below, resin–dots very conspicuous to obscure, glabrous.
Stamens inserted on corolla at varying levels between 1/4 and 2/3 from base; anthers c. 0·75 mm. long, in male flowers fertile and borne on long filaments, in female flowers functionless and borne on short filaments, sometimes almost sessile.
Flowers subsessile to shortly pedicelled, in dense fascicles or short racemes subtended by minute bracts, on old wood, mainly on the short shoots proximal to current leaves.
Fruit up to 1–2 cm. in diameter, depressed–globose, without persistent style, (?) with thin fleshy mesocarp (not apparent in herbarium) and woody endocarp 1–2·5 mm. thick.
Shrub or small tree 1·5–6 m. tall, with somewhat sarmentose branches and distinctive smooth pale grey to whitish bark on younger twigs.
Calyx 1·75–2 mm. long, cup–shaped, with resiniferous dots; lobes as long as tube, ovate or triangular, entire or somewhat dentate.
Gynoecium in male flower rudimentary, in female flower c. 5 mm. long, with globose ovary, slender style and 2–lobed stigma.
Corolla 3·5–4·5 mm. long, black–dotted, petals free, narrowly oblong, greenish to yellowish or reddish.
Plants dioecious.
