Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Shrubs up to 4 m tall.

Stems: Stems rigid, erect or sprawling, many-branched, forming a dense growth, young branches tomentose, thorns leafy.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblong to oblong–lanceolate, 1.5–5 cm long, 0.5–1.6 cm wide. Apex obtuse and mucronulate, or emarginate. Base cuneate-attenuate. Upper surfaces pubescent when young, soon glabrate and dark green; lower surfaces grayish tomentose, margins entire or with a few small teeth near apex. Margins crenulate, serrulate, or entire. Short-petiolate. Stipules minute, caducous.

Flowers: Flowers in dense corymbs 2–4 cm in diameter, pubescent throughout. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx lobes 5, small, persistent in fruit; sepals broadly deltate, 0.8–1 mm long, margins minutely denticulate. Corolla of 5 petals; petals 8–10 mm long. Stamens 15–21. Ovary 1/2 inferior, carpels 2–5, distinct on ventral side, but adnate to hypanthium ca. ½ their length on dorsal side, ovary walls becoming hard in fruit; ovules 2 per cell.

Fruit: Fruit bright orange to brick–red; depressed–globose; 6–8 mm in diameter. Seeds 1 per endocarp.

Ploidy: 2n = 34

Habitat:

Elevation Range: