Armed herbs to 1.5 m tall, densely pubescent throughout with pale yellow, many-celled stellate hairs; stems and branches with flat, erect or slightly recurved prickles 1-8 mm. Leaves ovate, 10-20 cm long, 8-18 cm wide, apically acute, basally truncate or subhastate, 5-11-sinuate lobed, pubescent, denser beneath, prickly along the veins; petiole 3-8 cm, often prickly. Inflorescences extra-axillary, several flowered, scorpioid-racemose, 1.2-2 cm long; peduncle 3 mm long; pedicel 1 cm long. Flowers andromonoecious; calyx lobes narrow in bud, splitting and becoming ovate, 8-10 mm long; corolla white, subrotate, 2 cm long; filaments very short, anthers lanceolate, acuminate, 7-8 mm long; ovary pubescent. Berry orange, globose, 2 cm across, with dense, persistent stellate tomentum; fruiting pedicel to 1.5 cm long; fruiting calyx somewhat enlarged, reflexed; seeds brown, 2 mm across.

NANTOU: Toushe, Shimada 1908. CHIAYI: Pinlin, Kao 10353. KAOHSIUNG: Shoushn, D’Arcy 19275; Taoyuan, Wang 777. PINGTUNG: South Cape, Henry 358; Bankinsing, Henry 449. TAITUNG: Yungkangshan, Lu 18598; Lanyu Is., Huang.

Widely distributed in southeast Asia. Taiwan, at roadsides and other disturbance.