Shrub or small tree, 2–6 m tall, spiny, glabrous or almost so throughout; bark yellowish to grey, peeling in small flakes; young branchlets glabrous. Leaves 3-foliolate, glabrous or with fairly long hairs at the base of the leaflets and on the petiole; petiole c. 5–35 mm long; middle leaflet obovate or rhombic, 7–35 x 8–25 mm, cuneate-attenuate at the base, rounded to acute at the apex, with margins deeply crenate usually above the middle on each side; lateral leaflets smaller than the middle one. Flowers produced before the leaves, glabrous, the male flowers many together in dense clusters, the female 1–6 together on c. 1 mm long pedicels. Calyx c. 3 mm long, shortly lobed. Petals 4–5 mm long. Fruits ovoid to ellipsoid, 10–15 x 7–8 mm, acute and often distinctly beaked at the apex; pericarp 2-valved; pseudaril almost entirely covering the rugose stone; stone c. 8 x 5 mm.