Rigid, erect, dioecious shrub to 3 m high; remaining developmentally juvenile/intermediate; spinescent short shoots always present; new shoots with a heavy indumentum of long-base T-shaped hairs with thin ribbony arms, the bases persistent, scabrous. Leaves: cotyledons two, opposite, obovate-elliptic, apices toothed with glandular uniseriate hairs; seedling leaves alternate, obovate to almost triangular; 6–12 mm long, c. 6 mm wide, apex truncate with few to several teeth with bristles; stems, hairs and leaves purple-red. Later developmental stages with leaves alternate, 8–15 mm long, 3.5–11 mm wide, orbicular to broadly ovate, petiolate, apices with numerous pungent teeth. Inflorescences basitonic, terminal on short shoots 1–3 unisexual flowers with parts in fives regularly placed around the pistil; bracteal involucre present. Sepals unequal, ovate, spreading from the base, green-yellow. Petals 4–6 mm long, cohering in throat, recurving salverform, green-yellow, inner surface hairy. Stamens with filaments adnate to petal joins, white, thin; anthers free. Male flowers: anthers ovoid, gold, exserted past stigma; pistil stipitate, underdeveloped. Female flowers: anthers vestigial, sagittate, brown, not exserted; ovary not stipitate, plump, 3 mm long, densely hairy; stigma fat, bifid. Fruit indehiscent with no suture lines evident, globose, 5–8 mm diam., orange, skin minutely pitted like orange peel; endocarp papery; seeds about six, yellow-brown, angular with thick, extended margins.
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