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Information All parts quite glabrous; leaves up to 5 × 3 cm, usually ovate-oblong.

Information A much-branched often dense scrambling or spreading weak-stemmed bush 2–5(10) m high; plants monoecious or dioecious, armed, glabrous; branches long slender horizontal, arching or pendent, blackish.Bark rough, dark brown.Twigs dark grey.Lateral shoots leafy, floriferous or both, not usually more than 10 cm long.Short shoots giving rise to one or more secondary laterals or lead shoots.Scale leaves 1.5–2 mm long, triangular-lanceolate, ciliate, dark brown, their bases becoming hard and spiny; their stipules triangular-ovate, otherwise resembling them.Foliage leaves distichous.Petioles 1 mm long.Stipules 1.3 mm long, oblong-linear to linear-lanceolate, chestnut-brown, ciliate-fimbriate.Leaf blades 0.7–2.3 × 0.4–1.5 cm, obovate-oblong to elliptic-oblong, usually ± parallel sided, obtuse, rounded or truncate, occasionally mucronulate, cuneate or rounded at the base, firmly membranaceous, bright yellow-green above, glaucous beneath; lateral nerves in 6–7(9) pairs, not or scarcely prominent above or beneath, often forming somewhat irregular loops.Flowers in clusters which are all male, or else a few male plus 1 female, or female flowers solitary.Male flowers: pedicels 2–3 mm, capillary; sepals (4)5, the 2 outer 1 × 1 mm, the 3 inner 1.3 × 1.3 mm, obovate-suborbicular, yellowish-green, cream-coloured or occasionally pinkish-, crimson- or purplish-tinged; disk glands (4)5, free, circular, ± smooth, fleshy; stamens (2)4(5), the 2 outer free, the rest united, or all united into a column 1 mm high, anthers 0.3 mm long, vertically held, longitudinally dehiscent.Female flowers: pedicels 1.5–2.5 mm long, slender; sepals ± as in the male; disk 0.67 mm in diameter, annular, crenellate, thick, fleshy; ovary 0.5 mm in diameter, sessile, rhomboid-ovoid, ± smooth; styles 3(4), 1 mm long, connate at the base, ± erect, slender, usually simple, slightly thickened and somewhat recurved at the apex.Fruit 3–4 × 4–5 mm, subglobose, smooth, fleshy, brownish at first later becoming dark reddish-purple, and black when dried.Seeds 1.5 × 1 × 1 mm, triquetrous, ± smooth, shiny, bright reddish-brown, with a round aperture by the hilum.

Information Monoecious or dioecious herbs, shrubs or trees of various habit, often with the shoots differentiated into 2 or 3 types: long lead shoots of unlimited growth (orthotropic shoots), short lateral shoots of potentially unlimited growth (brachyblasts) and leafy or floriferous lateral shoots of limited growth (plagiotropic shoots) which may resemble pinnate leaves or pseudoracemose inflorescences (see Tab. 8).Indumentum simple, rarely dendritic (Asia).Leaves often scale-like (cataphylls) on the lead shoots and short shoots, normal (trophophylls) on the lateral leafy shoots and occasionally also on the lead shoots.Foliage leaves alternate, often distichous, shortly petiolate, stipulate, simple, entire, penninerved, the nerves usually looped.Stipules of the scale leaves larger than those of the foliage leaves.Flowers small, axillary; male flowers geminate or fasciculate, usually in the lower axils of the lateral shoots; female flowers solitary in the upper axils, or male and female flowers on leafless lateral shoots, often pendent.Male flowers: pedicels often capillary; sepals (4)5–6, subequal, imbricate; petals absent; disk glands (4)5–6, free, alternisepalous, or rarely disk annular (P.pinnatus); stamens 2–6, filaments free or some or all partially or completely united, anthers basifixed, extrorse, variously held and dehiscent, thecae parallel or convergent; pistillode absent.Female flowers: pedicels more robust than in male flowers; sepals larger than but otherwise as in male; petals absent; disk hypogynous, annular, entire or lobed, rarely the glands distinct (e.g. P. maderaspatensis); staminodes rarely present; ovary sessile or stipitate, 3(ì)-locular, ovules 2 per locule; styles 3(ì), free or united at the base, variously held, bifid or 2-lobed, rarely simple (P. ovalifolius), the stigmas usually recurved.Fruits 3(ì)-celled, dry and septicidally and loculicidally dehiscent or fleshy and subindehiscent; endocarp usually crustaceous.Seeds 2 per locule, usually segmentiform, triquetrous and dorsally convex, rarely ovoid (e.g. P. inflatus), tuberculate, ridged, lineate or smooth, ecarunculate; testa usually thinly crustaceous; albumen fleshy; embryo straight or slightly curved; cotyledons flat, straight or rarely flexuous.42. Leaves elliptic-lanceolate, mucronulate, membranaceous to thinly chartaceous; male pedicels 1–2 mm long