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A small shrub. It can be a scrambler. It grows 1-3 m high. It can put up annual shoots from an underground stem or rhizome. The main stem has ridges at first. The leaves are alternate and with short stalks. The leaves are narrowly oval and shiny. The leaves vary in shape. They are 4-6 cm long. The flowers are yellow. The fruit are orange colour. There are several flowers in the axils of leaves. There are 2-16 with short stalks. The fruit is round and fleshy. It is 4-5 cm across. It is orange to yellow. It has a thin leathery skin and 2-3 large seeds. The fruit are edible.
Leaves alternate, petiolate; lamina glossy above, paler and dull below, 3·7–9·1 × 1·1–5·5 cm., oblong to elliptic or obovate, acute to obtuse or rounded at the apex, with margin entire or undulate-denticulate towards the apex, cuneate at the base, coriaceous, with 5–9 lateral nerves and densely reticulate venation prominent below but scarcely so above; petiole 1–4 mm. long, stout, with margins entire; stipules c. 1 mm. long, acicular, denticulate, caducous.
Shrub up to 1 (2–3) m. high (sometimes climbing?) or a shrublet with annual shoots from a rhizome with chrome yellow layer beneath the bark, with latex, glabrous; stems purple-red, ridged and flattened at first, becoming striate or angular and eventually terete, greyish, with numerous lenticels slightly prominent on older shoots.
Flowers c. 2–16 (rarely solitary), bisexual, in axillary sessile or shortly pedunculate fascicles; buds 2·5–3 mm. long, subglobose; peduncle absent or up to 2 mm. long pedicels 4–10 mm. long, smooth or almost so, articulated at the base.
Sepals unequal, outer 2 c. 1 mm. long, inner up to 2·5 mm. long, with innermost often subpetaloid, free, semicircular, rounded, with margin papyraceous, entire.
Petals 5–7, yellow or greenish-yellow, 3–4·5 mm. long, obovate, sessile or shortly unguiculate, rounded, entire or eroded-denticulate, spreading at anthesis.
Ovary ovoid-3-gonous, with style 1·5–2 mm. long, slender; stigma entire, small, punctiform; ovules 2 per loculus.
Stamens 3, with filaments broadened at the base; anthers dehiscing by 2 oblique clefts confluent at the apex.
Fruit orange to reddish-orange, 3·5–5 cm. in diam., globose, rugulose, 2–3-seeded.
Disk conic-cylindric, surrounding the ovary.
