Dioecious woody shrub, typically 1–2.5 meters tall, glabrous throughout, with numerous slender, divaricate branches. It is often scandent, growing along rocks or climbing over other shrubs. This species is deciduous, shedding its leaves in response to climatic conditions, and often appears leafless or sparsely foliated. Leaves are up to 4 cm long, linear to narrowly ovate, entire, sessile, and generally clustered in fascicles; older, spine-like branches are thicker than younger ones. The yellow flowers are zygomorphic (bilaterally symmetrical), usually unisexual (though occasionally bisexual), and arranged in many-flowered racemose spikes. Sepals are oblong-ovate, 1–1.5 mm long, and petals are usually absent. The fruit is a small, globose, subsessile, translucent berry that turns white at maturity, with black seeds often visible through the flesh. As it dries, the berry becomes red. Each fruit contains several dark brown, tuberculate seeds (up to 1.8 mm).