Shrub or small tree, up to 4 m tall, sparsely branched, with strong glabrous recurved 0.6–0.8(–1.2) cm long prickles; young branches with dense white indumentum of stellate hairs, older branches with glabrescent greyish brown bark with a reddish brown underbark. Leaves alternate, of comparable size throughout the plant; petioles 0.5–1.5 cm long, pubescent; blade ovate in outline, 2.5–6.5 x 1.4–4.5 cm, base broadly cuneate to rounded, margin sinuate, rarely leaves pinnately lobed, apex broadly acute to rounded, glabrescent, main nerves with 5–15 mm long, straight prickles. Inflorescences 1–2(–3)-flowered, lateral, 1–3 cm long, raceme-like, or terminal on lateral shoots up to c. 5 cm long with many recurved prickles and occasionally a few leaves; peduncle short or obsolete; rachis 1–2 cm long; pedicel 0.8–1.2 cm long, elongating to c. 1.8 cm in fruit. Calyx c. 5 mm long, with broad triangular lobes. Corolla bluish purple, stellate, densely tomentose with stellate hairs outside, up to c. 2.8 cm in diam. Anthers c. 5.5 mm long. Style exceeding the anthers with c. 5 mm. Fruits with hard yellow wall, 2–3 cm in diam. Seeds pale brown, 1–1.5 mm long.