Shrub scrambling to 1–5 m, pendent or straggling if unsupported, with many ascending branches; branches strongly ribbed, glabrous to coarsely hairy. Leaves dark green, thick-textured, narrowly to broadly elliptic, 6–50x2.5–15 mm, smaller upwards, tapering at both ends, apex acute; petiole 1–4 mm long, articulated to a small cushion, generally glabrous or soon glabrescent in East Africa. Flowering shoots 3–30 cm long, mostly with 10–30 flowers; bract leaf-like at base to small and linear at tip; bracteoles 2, opposite, linear-lanceolate, ± 1 mm long. Perianth white to pale yellow or greenish, leathery, with 5 ± distinct ribs running from the centre of each lobe to the ovary, external glands at base of perianth either well developed or not; tube cylindric, 3.5–6.5 mm long; lobes spreading, ovate, 1.2–2.3 mm long, acute, tips slightly hooded. Stamens: filaments 0.8–1.5 mm long; anthers 0.7–1 mm long. Ovary ± turbinate, strongly 5-ribbed; style 4.5–7.7 mm long, cylindric, thick; stigma visible in mouth. Fruit globose, 5–6 mm in diameter, bony but the epicarp fleshy, eventually creamy-white. Fig. 4 (page 22).