Shrubs or small trees, evergreen, 3-6 m tall; bark gray-brown, smooth, not flaking, spotted; twig tips and young branchlets puberulous, older branchlets glabrous, branches spiny when young, unarmed when old. Petiole short, 2-6 mm, glabrous; leaf blade ovate, narrowly elliptic, ovate-lanceolate, or broadly obovate, 3-9 × 1.5-4 cm, subleathery to leathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein raised abaxially, impressed adaxially, lateral veins 4-6 pairs, basal 1 or 2 pairs high ascending, reticulate veins raised on both sides, clear, not sparse, base usually acute-cuneate or with sides slightly concave, less often obtuse-cuneate, margin entire or shallowly and remotely serrulate, glands at junction of blade and petiole absent, apex broadly acute to rounded, sometimes shortly acuminate, acumen ca. 5 mm or less, extreme tip blunt. Racemes axillary or terminal, few flowered, to 4 cm, sometimes very short, minutely puberulous (view at × 20 mag.). Pedicels 3-4 mm, to 1 cm in fruit, minutely puberulous or glabrous. Flowers yellowish to white, 6-8 mm in diam. Sepals 5-6, ovate or oblong, 1.5-2 mm, outside glabrous, margin ciliate. Petals obovate, 2.5-3 mm, outside glabrous, margin ciliate. Disk glands 10-15. Stamens 4-5 mm, anther connective appendage glabrous or glabrescent. Ovary globose; style 3-5 mm; stigma minutely lobed. Berry green to blackish green when mature, globose, 7-9 mm in diam. Seeds 4 or 5. Fl. Aug-Sep, fr. Nov-May of following year.
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