Shrubs dioecious, 1-3 m tall, armed or unarmed. Branchlets alternate to subopposite, silvery-gray or gray-brown, sometimes terminating in an obtuse spine; terminal buds with few scales; scales pale green, ciliate. Leaves alternate to rarely subopposite, or fascicled at base of annual branches or on short shoots; petiole 2-4 mm, glabrous; leaf blade elliptic or broadly elliptic, rarely obovate-lanceolate or obovate-elliptic, 5-15 × 2-6 cm, papery or thinly papery, both surfaces glabrous or abaxially pubescent especially on veins, lateral veins 5-7 pairs, prominent abaxially, slightly impressed adaxially, reticulate veins conspicuous, base cuneate, margin hooked-crenate, apex acuminate or long acuminate. Flowers yellow-green, unisexual, 4-merous, few-to 20-fascicled at base of annual branches or 1 to few in axils. Pedicels 6-10 mm. Male flowers with petals present. Female flowers with rudimentary stamens; ovary globose, 3-loculed; styles longer than ovary, (2 or)3-fid or nearly cleft to half. Drupe purple-black or black at maturity, obovoid-globose, ca. 9 mm, 6-7 mm in diam., with 2 or 3 stones, with persistent calyx tube at base; fruiting pedicel 6-15 mm, glabrous. Seeds dark brown, obovoid-oblong, ca. 6.5 mm, abaxially with margined furrow extending over 2/5-1/2 of length, without fissured line. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jun-Oct.
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