Densely stellate-tomentose, greyish or yellowish-green, prickly shrub, 1-2 m tall ; prickles stout, sharp, 2-7 mm long, broad at base, yellowish, recurved. Leaves petiolate, ovate-elliptic to lanceolate, cordate, entire to sinuately lobed, acute or obtuse, 4-15 x 2-8 cm. Flowers solitary or paired, if paired then the upper staminate and the lower bisexual. Pedicel short, accrescent in fruit. Calyx 5-parted, 3-4 mm long, lobes triangular, unarmed or in fruit prickly. Corolla violet or purple, 1-2 x 1.5-3 cm, lobes lanceolate, densely stellate-tomentose outside. Anthers yellowish to purplish, sessile, 3-5 mm long, oblong. Ovary globose, glabrous; style longer than stamens, stellate-hairy below. Berry globose, glabrous, yellow, 1.5-4 cm across.