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Male flower: calyx 3–3.5 mm long, vesture as on pedicels; tube tubular, 2.5–3 mm wide, sometimes ribbed; lobes slightly unequal, 0.8–1.8 mm long, broadly triangular, acute, erect, the sinuses acute; corolla white with pale lilac to purple limb and base of the lobes dark purple, 5–9 mm long, glabrous outside; tube narrowly infundibuliform to tubular, usually much longer than the calyx, pilose on the inside at filament insertions; limb 5–6 mm across; lobes 1.5–2 mm long, semi-orbicular to ovate, spreading, ciliolate or glabrous; stamens unequal, attached at ± the middle of the corolla tube, 1 or 2 slightly exserted, 2 in the corolla mouth, the fifth one if present then included; filaments 2–4 mm long, pilose at the base; anthers fertile; disk prominent, red; ovary 1 mm in diameter, ovoid to globose; style very short, 0.5–1 mm long, included; stigma absent.
Dioecious, rigid, erect, densely branched shrub, up to 1.8 m tall. Leaves succulent, in small clusters, linear to narrowly obovate, flattened, 7-12 mm long. Flowers functionally unisexual, tubular to narrowly funnel-shaped, 6-9 mm long, white, lobes lilac with dark purple bases, spreading, calyx small, male flowers with minute style, female flowers with infertile anthers, style 6-9 mm long. Berries red, ovoidal, 4-6 mm long.
Dioecious, stiffly branched, thorny shrub to 2 m. Leaves in tufts on short shoots, succulent, linear-oblanceolate, 7-18 x 1.5-3.0 mm. Flowers functionally unisexual, tubular, white and purple, tube 6-9 mm long with petals 1.5-2.0 mm long, stamens inserted ± halfway up tube, included or shortly exserted. Berries 4-6 mm diam., red.
Leaves fascicled on stems and spines in clusters of 3–6, subsessile or with a very short petiole of 0.5 mm; lamina fleshy, 7–12(18) × 1.5–3 mm, linear or ovate-oblong to narrowly spathulate, apex obtuse to somewhat acute, when young with microscopic, short glandular hairs.
A shrub. It can grow t0 1.8 m tall. The leaves are succulent and in small clusters. They are narrow and 7-12 mm long. The flowers are tube shaped and 6-9 mm long. They are white with lilac lobes that have dark purple bases. The fruit are oval red berries 4-6 mm long.
Shrub, up to 1.8 m high, densely thorny. Leaves elliptic to obovate, 10-28 mm long, glabrous. Flowers bisexual; calyx 3.0-3.5 mm long; corolla 6-9 mm long; nectary red, conspicuous. Flowering time Apr.-Aug. Fruit ovate to globose, red berry.
Stems rigid to sometimes slightly flexuous; bark whitish and striate with brown when young, to dark lead-grey or sometimes purplish-brown, glabrous and smooth to rugose and transversally cracked when older.
Female flower: the same as in male flower except for the stamens included and the anthers infertile, style 5–9 mm long, slightly exserted, and stigma fertile.
Flowers functionally monoecious, 4–5-merous, erect; pedicels 0.5–5 mm long, covered with minute short glandular hairs.
Fruit red, 4–6 × 3–3.5 mm, ovoid with apex slightly acute, poisonous according to some accounts.
Rigidly erect, densely branched, very spiny shrub, sometimes bushy, 0.2–3 m high.
Seeds 2 × 2.5 mm, ovate in outline.
