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A shrub or small tree. It grows 2-15 m tall. The branches are spreading, angular and grooved. The leaves are opposite and 5-11 cm long by 3-5 cm wide. They are broadly oval. They are dark green above and more pale underneath. They have a purple tinge when young. The flowering shoots are usually in the axils of the leaves but occasionally at the ends of branches. They are yellowish-green. Flowers can be male or female or have both sexes. The fruit is a berry 2-2.5 cm across. It is round and yellow or orange when ripe. There are 1-3 seeds. The seeds are curved and 10 mm long.
Inflorescence axillary, rarely terminal; flowers polygamous, 10–15 mm. in diam., single or in few-flowered, sessile or shortly pedunculate, biparous cymes or fascicles; pedicels 2–5 mm. long, pale green, ± quadrangular.
Sepals 4, pale or yellowish green, ± unequal, the outer pair orbicular or semi-orbicular, sometimes very small, the inner pair larger, orbicular or broadly obovate, rounded at the apex.
Male flowers with 4 stamen-fascicles, each with 7–8 stamens with filaments completely united and anthers sessile, oblong, curved, not septate; ovary-vestige orange, c. 2 mm. in diam.
Female flowers with a pale green, globular or flask-shaped, 4-locular ovary, surmounted by a broad peltate sticky orange-yellow ± 4-lobed stigma.
Petals 4, 5–8 mm. long, 2–3 times as long as the inner sepals, greenish to yellow, obovate, spreading in flower, rounded at the apex.
Evergreen shrub or tree, 1·4–15 m. high, erect, much branched, glabrous; branches dense or ± spreading, angular or grooved.
Bisexual flowers like female ones, but with 4 slender stamens, or 4 stamen-fascicles each of 2 stamens.
Berry up to c. 20–25 mm. in diam., globular, yellow or orange when ripe, 1–3-seeded.
Seeds curved, ± cylindric, c. 10 mm. long.
