Shrub or small tree, the trunk provided with numerous, long, slender, compound spines, the branchlets slender, densely short-hispid, the hairs brownish, the axillary spines to 2.5 cm long. Leaves very short-petiolate, the petiole 2-4 mm long, densely short-hispid; blade narrowly elliptic to elliptic, obtuse at the base, acuminate to caudate-acuminate at the apex, the acumen from acute to obtuse, the margins obtusely serrulate, the serrations glandular on the lower side, to 9 cm long and 3.5 cm wide, rigid-chartaceous, glabrous or nearly so above, hispidulous below especially along the slightly prominent costa and prominulous lateral veins. Inflorescences axillary, fasciculate, up to 10-flowered, bracteate at the base. Flowers dioecious (or polygamous?). Male flowers not seen. Female flowers (young fruits) (or hermaphrodite flowers?) with slender hispidulous pedicels to 5 mm long; sepals 4, subeircular, rounded apically, 1-1.5 mm long, the margins densely ciliolate, glabrous or nearly so dorsally, pilose inside. Bacca (juvenile) globose-ovoid, ca 4 mm long, glabrous, surmounted by the 2 persistent, subsessile, spreading stigmas.
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