Shrubs 1-5 m tall. Branches green to grey green, pubescent when young becoming glabrescent. Thorns 1-5 cm long, usually leafy. Leaves alternate or sometimes fascicled, glabrous, leaf blade elliptic to lanceolate, 2-7(-10) x 0.8-2.5 cm, base cuneate, margin serrulate, apex acuminate rarely rounded and mucronate. Petiole to 12 mm long, glabrous. Inflorescences usually racemose 2-4 cm long, sometimes 1-flowered, from the axils of thorns or on short branches, pubescent becoming glabrescent. Flowers ca. 1 cm in diameter. Hypanthium cup-shaped. Sepals 5, semiorbicular to broadly ovate, 2-4mm, with erose margin. Petals 5, white, orbicular to obovate, apically erose and with short claw at the base. Bracts and bracteoles lanceolate, glabrescent. Pedicel 5-8 mm. Stamens in 2 or more whorls, filaments up to 2 mm long, anther thecae separated by a broad connective. Ovary glabrous. Style 2-3 mm. Drupe dark purplish to black, oblong to obovate, up to 15 mm long. Seed with oily cotyledons.