Much branched shrub or tree, up to 12 m. tall, with rounded bushy crown; trunk sometimes armed with spines up to 15 cm. long; bark pale brown or grey, smooth or rough.. Branches and branchlets with axillary straight spines up to 6 cm. long; sterile coppice shoots virgate, very spiny.. Leaf-blades ovate-oblong or-lanceolate, or elliptic, or obovate, shortly acuminate, tip bluntish, base cuneate, subcoriaceous, initially puberulous on midrib and nerves, early glabrescent, 5–8(–12) cm. long, 2.5–4.5(–6) cm. broad, regularly subglandular-serrate-crenate; nerves (4–)5–8 pinnate pairs, slightly raised on both faces as is the dense reticulation; petiole 3–10 mm. long.. Racemes from foliate and defoliate axils, solitary or rarely in pairs, rather few-and lax-flowered, sometimes reduced to fascicles, shortly pubescent or sometimes almost glabrous, 1–2(–4) cm. long; pedicels slender, 5–15 mm. long.. Flowers 4–6-merous.. Sepals ovate, puberulous outside, ± 2 mm. long.. Petals linear, ± 2.5 mm. long, sometimes fugacious.. Receptacle glabrous or moderately short-hairy.. Disk-glands absent.. Stamens 20–30; anthers hardly apiculate.. Ovary glabrous; style 4–6 mm. long; stigma very shortly 3–4-lobed.. Fruit ovoid-subglobular, finally red, 6–7 mm. across.. Seeds few, angular, 3–4 mm. long.. Fig. 12.
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A shrub or small tree. It grows 12 m tall and is branched. The bark is pale brown to grey. The leaves are simple and alternate. The leaves are small and wedge shaped at the base and tapering to the tip. There are teeth along the edge. They are slightly hairy on the veins. The fruit is a flattened fleshy berry. It is 7 mm across.
It is a tropical plant. It grows near rivers and in mountain forests. In Tanzania it grows between 1,000-2,000 m above sea level.
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Rainforest or dry evergreen forest and associated bushland, riverine forest, at elevations from 1,000-2,000 metres.
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