Shrubs prostrate, evergreen, 20-30 cm tall. Branchlets straight, stout, puberulent, with distinctly raised leaf scars; terminal buds ovoid, puberulent. Leaves on first to sixth year’s branches; petiole 1-2 mm, dorsiventrally flattened, glabrous or puberulent; leaf blade abaxially greenish, adaxially deep green, shiny, hexangular-subrhombic, rarely elliptic, 1-3.2 × 0.7-1.5 cm, thickly leathery, abaxially smooth, adaxially rugose, both surfaces glabrous, midvein obscure abaxially, deeply impressed adaxially, lateral veins 3 or 4 pairs, obscure abaxially, deeply impressed adaxially, reticulate veins obscure abaxially, impressed adaxially, base obtuse, rarely rounded, margin subentire, sinuate, with 2 or 3 pairs of spines, apex broadly deltoid, acute, with 1 spine ca. 2 mm. Inflorescences: 1-flowered cymes, few fascicled, fascicles 2-4-flowered, axillary on second year’s branchlets, persistent bud scales basal, cartilaginous, rounded, glabrous; flowers 4-merous. Male inflorescences: bracts ovate, slightly puberulent, ciliate; pedicels 2-3 mm, glabrous; bracteoles 2, submedian, glabrous, or ciliate; flowers 4-merous; calyx patelliform, ca. 3 mm in diam., 4-lobed, lobes ovate, ca. 0.9 mm, glabrous or ciliate; corolla 4-5 mm in diam., petals ovate, ca. 1.5 mm, basally slightly connate; stamens equaling or slightly longer than petals, anthers ovoid-oblong, ca. 0.75 mm; rudimentary ovary pulvinate, obscurely lobed. Female flowers: calyx and corolla as in male flowers; staminodes shorter than petals, sterile anthers ovoid; ovary ovoid, 1.5-2 mm, stigma thickly discoid. Fruit red, ellipsoidal-globose, 6-7 mm in diam.; fruiting pedicel 3-4 mm; persistent stigma discoid; pyrene 1, subglobose, slightly dorsiventrally flattened, ca. 5 mm in diam., abaxially palmately striate, not sulcate, adaxially canaliculate, endocarp woody. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Sep-Nov.
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