Gnarled straggling shrub or small tree up to 7 m tall, spinescent, glabrous. Brachyblasts very short. Branches angular and reddish brown when young, becoming terete and grey with age, often with insect galls (thickened areas). Spines robust, up to 95 mm long. Leaves fasciculate or alternate towards lips of branchlets, glabrous, coriaceous, green, shortly petiolate; lamina rhomhic or obovate, 30-56(-70) x 17-35 mm, apex round to emarginate, sometimes shortly acute, base cuneate, margin indurate, revolute, with irregular teeth only in distal half, venation obvious below, midrib yellow in dry specimens, prominent below; petiole 1-2 mm long. Stipules subulate, margin fimbriate, ± 1 mm long. Inflorescence a dichasium, shorter than leaves; peduncles 4-15 mm long; pedicels 5-8 mm long. Flowers 5-9 per cyme, white or yellowish, pentamerous. Sepals ± 1.5 mm long, ovate, margin ciliolate. Petals 1-3 mm long, triangular, margin uneven. Disc 1 mm in diam. Male flowers with stamens longer than petals: filaments 3 mm long, arising at base of disc: anthers 0.5 mm long; pistillode small; style short, unbranched. Female flowers with style and stigma longer than petals; staminodes shorter than stamens of male flowers; style 1.5 mm long; stigma 3-branched, 1 mm long, spreading. Ovary 3-locular; ovules 2 per locule. Capsules 3-valved, subglobose, coriaceous, verrucose, 7-9 mm long, yellow to orange-red; styles persistent in fruiting stage. Seeds 1-3, ellipsoid, dark reddish brown, 3 mm long, aril yellow, partially covering seed.
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