a shrub 8–10 ft. high; twigs glabrous, often ending in rigid bare spines 6–8 lin. long; leaves herbaceous, rather pale green and dull on both surfaces, glabrous above, beneath often with a patch of silky hairs in the angles between main-nerves and midrib, otherwise glabrous, obovate or suborbicular or ovate, usually rounded, sometimes acute, sometimes retuse at apex, almost always with a short soft mucro, base gradually or abruptly cuneate or rounded, usually 5-nerved, outer pair of nerves from near base, next pair usually closely applied to midrib from 2–4 lin. above base, 1 1/2–2 in. long, 3/4–1 1/4 in. wide; petiole glabrous, 1–3 lin. long; cymes terminal on young twigs, simple, 3–5-flowered, or once (less often twice) branched, each branch 3–5-flowered; main-peduncles 2–3 lin. long, puberulous, branches 1/2–1 lin. long; bracts narrow lanceolate, 1 1/2 lin. long; pedicels very short; calyx campanulate, 2 lin. long; tube very short; teeth 5, lanceolate-subulate, glabrous or puberulous; corolla greenish-white, 2 lin. long; tube campanulate, as long as lobes; lobes 5, hardly spreading, glabrous outside, within with a ring of long hairs at throat; stamens 5, inserted at base of corolla-tube, included and hidden by the hairs on corolla-throat; filaments filiform; anthers laterally connected by long interwoven hairs; ovary 1-celled; ovules many on a central placenta; berry globose, 3–4 in. in diam., at first green, at length yellow; seeds many, flat, embedded in a sweet pulp. null
