Shrub or tree up to 6 m. high, with bark grey, smooth; branches striate, lenticellate (but sometimes not in the first year), purplish- or yellow-brown, papillose-puberulous or glabrous at first, later always glabrous, eventually exfoliating in small scales or not. Leaves petiolate; lamina 4·5–9 × (1·8) 2–2·9 (3·3) cm., oblanceolate or rarely elliptic or obovate-oblanceolate, acute or acuminate at the apex, with margin densely spinulose-serrulate or curved-serrulate, cuneate to rounded at the base, herbaceous, with numerous widely spreading lateral nerves and densely reticulate tertiary venation prominent above (with main laterals more prominent than subsidiaries) and almost smooth below; petiole 1·5–2 mm. long, rather slender, grooved above. Flowers (5) 7–10 in a ± elongated simple raceme with rhachis 9–20 mm. long; pedicels 1·4–2·6 cm. long in fruit, articulated in the lower 1/4 (c. 1–5 mm. from the base), papillose-puberulous or glabrous. Sepals 5–7 mm. long in flower, elliptic, rounded, becoming scarlet, 7–9 mm. long, flat or somewhat convex and reflexed or rarely ascending in fruit. Petals pale yellow, c. 8–10 x 5–6 mm., obovate, narrowing to a short claw. Stamens with anthers 1·5 mm. long, about 1/2 as long as the filaments, straight, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Carpels 5–8, with styles completely united; stigma subglobose. Drupelets 6–8 × 4–5 mm., ovoid-cylindric, inserted below the centre; embryo somewhat curved.