Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Woody shrubs, main branches bearing short lateral branches usually ending in a spine.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate on main shoots. Surfaces glabrous or nearly so; leaves evergreen or seasonally deciduous. Margins entire. Subsessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 1 to several in clusters at the nodes, pedicellate. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Calyx campanulate, 4–5-lobed, sometimes 2–lipped. Corolla tubular, expanded into a 4–5– lobed limb, the lobes often reflexed. Stamens 4–5, inserted on corolla throat; filaments pilose below; anthers dithecal, opening longitudinally. Ovary superior, 2-celled, subtended by an annular disk, placentation axile; ovules numerous; style 1, slender; stigma capitate with 2 oblique stigmatic surfaces.

Fruit: Fruit a succulent; 2–celled berry; calyx enclosing base. Seeds irregularly D–shaped; minutely pitted; embryo curved; endosperm present.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: