Shrubs spreading, dioecious, to 3 m tall, much spinose. Branches alternate or subopposite, often terminating in a woody spine; young branches yellow-green, pilose; older branches purple-red or dark purple, shiny, smooth, glabrous, with longitudinally fissured outer bark. Leaves alternate to subopposite, or fascicled on short shoots; stipules linear, ca. 1/2 as long as petiole; petiole 1-2 mm, puberulent; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially grayish green, oblanceolate, obovate-elliptic, or oblong, small, narrow, 6-18 × 3-6 mm, subleathery, both surfaces glabrous or puberulent only at base, lateral veins 2-4 pairs, base cuneate, margin sparsely serrate, apex obtuse or emarginate. Flowers yellow-green, unisexual, 4-merous, glabrous. Pedicels 2-4 mm, slender. Male flowers 2-5-fascicled on short shoots, ca. 2.5 mm; sepals ovate-lanceolate, apex acute, ca. 2 × as long as petals; rudimentary ovary very small, narrow. Female flowers 2-or 3-fascicled at apices of branches or in leaf axils of lower part of annual branches; styles 2-fid. Drupe brown, subglobose, 3-4 mm in diam., with 2 or 3 stones, with persistent calyx tube at base; fruiting pedicel 4-5 mm, glabrous. Seeds yellow-brown, oblong-ovoid, abaxially-laterally with margined, broadly gaping furrow extending over 4/5 of length. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Jun-Sep.
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