A tall shrub or a small tree; young branches often spiny, bearing leaves and flowers. Leaves grey, coriaceous, glabrous, very variable, obovate, oblanceolate or linear-spathulate, obtuse, entire or crenulate, decurrent at the base, 0.5-4.5 x 0.4-2 cm; petioles c. 3 mm long. Flower small in axillary, dichotomous or fasciculate cymes on short branchlets, often forming terminal, elongate panicles. Pedicels filiform; bracts small, lanceolate, acute. Calyx lobes broadly elliptic-oblong, ciliate. Petals oblong. Disc fleshy, many lobed. Ovary glabrous, orbicular; style deeply 2-3-cleft. Capsules globose, 4-5 mm broad, bivalved, purple. Seeds chestnut brown; arillode orange.