A scandent or decumbent shrub. Branchlets light greenish, terete or slightly angular, usually warty, occasionally bearing rootlets (ELMER 8729, L). Leaves membranous to chartaceous, ovate, elliptic, sometimes broad-ovate or-elliptic, rarely obovate, 3-7.5 by 1½-4 cm; base acute or cuneate, sometimes obtuse; apex acute to acuminate, rarely obtuse; margins serrulate or crenulate, sometimes entire at the lower part; nerves 3-5 pairs; petiole 2-3 mm. Inflorescences axillary, sometimes extra-axillary, 2-4.5 cm long. Peduncle 1-3½ cm, usually 3-10-flowered, sometimes divided into two very short branches at the apex. Bracts at the base of the peduncle and around it, triangular to lanceolate, 3-8 mm long, slightly erose. Bracteoles at the base of the pedicels triangular, c. 0.5 mm long, short fimbriate, persistent. Pedicels 7-9 mm. Flowers greenish white, or yellowish, 4-merous. Calyx lobes semi-orbicular, or deltoid, 1-2 mm long, the margin reddish brown, denticulate. Petals obovate to slightly obovate-oblong, 4-4.5 by 2-3 mm, short-fimbriate, sometimes revolute. Disk obscurely 4-angular, fleshy, 2-3 mm in diam., covered with papillae. Stamens each attached at the margin of the disk in a shallow notch; filaments c. 3 mm, subulate; anthers broadly ovoid or subrotund, c. 0.75 mm long, introrse, slightly apiculate. Pistil emerging c. 2.5 mm from the disk, ± cylindric, gradually enlarged and ± 4-angular towards the base, the basal part densely papillose in very young flowers later growing out into fleshy, subulate processes gradually increasing in length after anthesis. Fruits globose, densely covered with prickles, up to 13 mm incl. the spines (Sumatra). Endocarp in each cell on both sides thickened and cartilaginous, loosening from the shrinking exocarp.
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