Tree or shrub up to 6 m tall, evergreen, dioecious or rarely polygamous, armed with spines up to 6 cm long; bark ashen-white to brown with longitudinal ridges and fissures; ultimate branchlets often much abbreviated, up to about 2 cm long or forming cushion-like structures. Leaves fascicled or, on young shoots, alternate; blade soft to coriaceous, obo-vate or sometimes elliptic-rhomboid, 2-5,5 cm long, 1-3 cm broad, glabrous or rarely puberul-ous, with prominent venation on both sides, 3-5-veined from the base, apex acute to obtuse or emarginate, base usually cuneate, margin entire, slightly revolute; petiole 2-4 mm long, glabrous. Male flowers light green, fascicled, with 5-10 flowers in groups of 3; calyx 2-5-lobed; lobes 3 mm long, elliptic, pubescent; stamens numerous; filaments 5 mm long; necÂtaries hairy. Female flowers light green, solitary or in fascicles of 2-3 on abbreviated shoots; pedicels 4—10 mm long; calyx deeply 5-7-lobed, lobes 3 mm long, elliptic-lanceolate, puberulous, acuminate, somewhat recurved; disc sparsely hairy; ovary 5-7-lobed, unilocuÂlar; placentas 5-7, each placenta with 2 ovules; styles 5-7. Fruit subglobose, 3-6 cm in diam., minutely velvety, bright yellow. Seeds many, woolly, 1 cm long. Fig. 28: 2; 29