a shrub or small tree; bark corky, fissured; leaves thickly coriaceous, glabrous, dull and rather pale green, ovate or oblong, acute with a rigid spinous tip, base cuneate or rounded, 5-nerved, the outer nerves slender submarginal arising from base, the pair next midrib also from base or closely applied to midrib from 1/2–1 lin. above base, 1 1/2–2 in. long, 1/2–1 1/4 in. wide; petiole glabrous, stout, 1/4 lin. long; cymes 5–9-flowered, 5–7 lin. long, as much across, almost all from below leaves; peduncles obsolete; bracts 1/4 lin. long; pedicels stout, 1/2 lin. long, pubescent; calyx ovate, 1/2 lin. long; teeth 5, ovate, obtuse, with ciliate margins; tube obsolete; corolla white, 3 lin. long; tube rather longer than lobes; lobes 5, at length spreading, outside glabrous, within with a ring of hairs at throat; stamens 5, adnate to corolla-throat; filaments very short; anthers exserted; ovary 2-celled; style sparingly hairy at base; ovules several in each cell; berry globose, resting on accrescent calyx-lobes, when ripe “as large as a cannon-ball” (Buchner); “5 in. in diam.” (Leendertz). null
