Shrub or small tree 1–3(6) m. high, often bushy or straggling, with spines up to 1·8 cm. long, terminal or axillary on short branches without latex; branches flattened, angular, reddish-brown, reddish-brown- or fawn-pubescent or -puberulous when young, becoming terete, often longitudinally striate, with numerous pale lenticels and eventually greyish. Leaves frequently fasciculate, petiolate; lamina 1·8–7·5(9) × 1–4 cm., elliptic or oblong-elliptic to obovate or oblanceolate, obtuse to rounded or emarginate at the apex, with margin subentire to shallowly crenulate or remotely glandular-denticulate, cuneate to angustate at the base, membranous to chartaceous, fawn-pubescent or -puberulous on both sides, with lateral veins and dense reticulate venation slightly prominent on both sides; petiole 1–5 mm. long, pubescent or puberulous. Cymes regularly dichasial or submonochasial, solitary and axillary or 2–5 in fascicles on short shoots, with peduncle (3)5–18(36) mm. long, pubescent; pedicels c. 4–10 mm. long, articulated near the base, pubescent; flowers c. 7–20(40) in each cyme, (6)8–10 mm. in diam., scented. Sepals 5, subequal, c. 1 mm. long, broadly ovate to subcircular, rounded, pubescent outside. Petals 5, white or cream, 4–5(6) mm. long, obovate to oblong, sessile, with margin irregularly ciliolate-fimbriate. Stamens 5, with filaments 1·5–2 mm. long, slender, arising below the disk. Disk red, broad, convex, ± shallowly 5-lobed. Ovary 3-locular, subglobose, puberulous, c. 1/2-immersed in disk; style c. twice as long as ovary, 3-fid at the apex; stigmas small. Capsule orange, 4–6 mm. long, flattened-subglobose or obconic-3-gonous, pubescent. Seeds (2)3, reddish-brown, completely enclosed by an aril.