A spiny evergreen shrub or small tree up to 6(–8) m high (frequently much shorter), with a low bushy habit, densely branched, or with a trunk up to 40 cm diameter; bark grey-brown, strongly fissured; sap gummy; branchlets grey-green or yellowish-brown and, like the young spines, glabrous or puberulous to pubescent at first, glabrescent. Primary spines borne on the parent axis at a varying angle, (1–)2–5(–10) cm above the axil, 2–11 cm long, 2–5 mm diameter at the base, subulate, smooth or sometimes shallowly grooved, green or yellowish-green, spinuliferous with some branch-spines; spinules 0.5–2 cm long grading to branch-spines. Leaves on the stems and spines, sessile or with a petiole up to 4 mm long; stipules 1–2(–3) mm long, triangular, puberulous, often persistent; leaflets sessile or sub-sessile, orbicular to broadly obovate or obovate-elliptic, 0.7–6.5 cm long, 0.8–4.8 cm wide, coriaceous, frequently concave and undulate, apex rounded or sometimes emarginate to truncate and abruptly apiculate, base rounded or broadly cuneate, glabrous or puberulous to pubescent, eventually glabrescent, rarely setulose; foliole linear, 0.7–4 mm long, sometimes caducous. Inflorescence on the stems and spines, a few to 12-flowered fascicle or sometimes clustered on a short peduncle up to 2.8 cm long, axillary or rarely terminal on a leafy shoot; pedicels 0.2–1.6 cm long. Flowers 4-merous; sepals ovate, 3–5.5 mm long, 3 mm wide, acute to acuminate, sparsely pubescent outside, the glabrous margin narrow; petals yellowish green or olive-green, obovate-elliptic, 3–6.5 mm long, 1.8–2.5 mm wide, acute or obtuse and sometimes irregular at the apex, narrowing to the base, glabrous within; stamens 8, spreading-erect; anthers 1.5–2 mm long, 0.5–1 mm wide; ovary 1–1.5 mm high, glabrous or densely pubescent to pilose; style 1–2 mm long. Fruit, not elongating in early development, swelling at first proximally, with slower expansion of the glabrous style-base, eventually ripening orange-yellow, ovoid to broadly ellipsoid when mature, 2.5–3 cm long, 1.8–2.5 cm diameter, rounded at both ends, thin, hard, brittle and smooth on the outside, fibrous within enclosing a dense pale layer, the endocarp hard and oily, the seed becoming free inside the fruit.