Shrubs; branches often spiny, terete. Leaves 2.5 – 5.5 x 2-4 cm, elliptic-ovate or obovate, base cuneate, margins entire or coarsely serrate above the middle, apex acute, glabrous; petiole to 1 cm long. Flowers in simple or panicled racemes, terminal and axillary; pedicel 2-5 mm long. Calyx tubular, fleshy, 3-4 mm long, angled, persistent. Corolla blue or violet, with or without two purplish stripes on the tube; tube 4-6 mm long, densely puberulent outside above the calyx, limb 7-9 mm across, densely puberulent on both surface, especially towards the throat within. Stamens 4, didynamous. Ovary globular, 8-locular, 8-ovuled. Drupes yellow or orangeish – yellow, 6-10 mm across, globose, completely enclosed by the fruiting-calyx.