Trees, 5-15 m tall; bark gray-brown, not flaky; when young with simple or branched thorns to 10 cm on trunk and branches (thornless in cultivated forms); branchlets terete, glabrous to densely pubescent when young. Petiole 4-8 mm, glabrous or pubescent, hairs spreading; young leaves flaccid, drooping, rose-red to brown; mature leaves ovate-oblong, elliptic-oblong, or oblong-lanceolate, 6-16 × 4-7 cm, subleathery, both surfaces glabrous or minutely puberulous, in older leaves hairs mostly confined to midveins and lateral veins, midvein raised and sometimes prominent abaxially, impressed adaxially, lateral veins 5-11 pairs, base obtuse to rounded, less often acute, margin serrulate, serrate, or dentate, teeth obtuse, apex gradually to abruptly acuminate, acumen 0.5-2 cm, tip obtuse. Inflorescences axillary, racemose, 0.5-1 cm, puberulous; bracts ovate, ca. 1 mm, pubescent. Pedicels 3-4 mm, puberulous to pubescent, hairs ± appressed, short. Flowers yellowish green, scentless. Sepals (3 or)4 or 5(or 6), ovate, 1-1.5 mm, both surfaces pubescent, outside sparsely pubescent, inside more densely so, margin ciliate, apex acute or obtuse. Staminate flowers: stamen filaments 3-4 mm, glabrous; disk orange-red to yellowish. Pistillate flowers: ovary bottle-shaped; placentas 4-6(-8); styles 4-6(-8), free, divergent, 0.7-1.5 mm; stigmas recurved, slightly dilated, reniform; staminodes (reduced stamens) or developed stamens (?functional) occasionally present. Fruit light green, pink, purplish, or dark red, globose, 2-2.5 cm in diam., 4-7-angled in dried state, persistent styles well-spaced, set in a circle at fruit apex. Seeds ca. 12. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jun-Oct.

Evergreen broad-leaved forests; below 2000 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Taiwan, Yunnan [India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, both wild and cultivated].