Shrubs or trees, evergreen, 2-15(-25) m tall; bark gray-black, slightly longitudinally fissured. Branchlets striate, puberulent or glabrescent; old branches gray-yellow, thick and strong, smooth or minutely fissured, lenticels obscure, leaf scars semicircular. Petiole 3-6 mm, abaxially rugose, adaxially sulcate and pubescent; leaf blade abaxially greenish, adaxially deep green, shiny, elliptic-oblong, elliptic, or ovate-elliptic, rarely ovate, 4-10 × 2-4 cm, thickly leathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein impressed, puberulent or glabrescent adaxially, lateral veins 6-9 pairs, raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, base broadly cuneate to rounded, margin entire or subentire with 3-14 spines per side, apex shortly acuminate to acuminate, with a sharp spine. Inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes, fasciculate, axillary on second year’s branchlets; bracts ovate-lanceolate, ciliate; flowers greenish, 4-merous. Male inflorescences: pedicels 2-3 mm, sparsely puberulent or glabrescent; bracteoles basal, lanceolate, ca. 1.5 mm; calyx discoid, ca. 3 mm in diam., deeply lobed, lobes ovate-deltoid, sparsely ciliate, apex acute or obtuse; corolla rotate, ca. 7 mm in diam., petals ovate, ca. 3 mm, ciliate, basally slightly connate; stamens 4, longer than petals, anthers oblong-ovoid; rudimentary ovary ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., apex obtuse or truncate. Female inflorescences: pedicels 1-3 mm, sparsely puberulent or glabrescent; calyx and corolla as in male flowers; staminodes slightly shorter than petals, sterile anthers subcordate or sagittate; ovary ovoid, stigma discoid, lobed. Fruit red, globose, 7-9 mm in diam.; persistent calyx quadrangular; persistent stigma discoid, 2-4-lobed; pyrenes (1 or)2(-4), when 2 pyrenes: oblong-ellipsoidal or subglobose, 5-7 mm, ca. 5 mm in diam., abaxially palmately striate and sulcate, adaxially striate-sulcate; when 4 pyrenes: oblong, ca. 3.5 mm in diam.; endocarp woody. Fl. Apr-Jul, fr. Jun-Dec. 2n = 40.
More
An evergreen tree. It grows to about 10 m high. It has rough, dark grey bark. The leaves have stalks. They are oval or sword shaped. There are spiny teeth around the edges on young parts. The flowers are greenish white. They occur in round clusters in the axils of leaves. The fruit is fleshy with a hard covering over the seed. The fruit is round when ripe. It is red. The stone has grooves along it.
Home