Shrub or small tree, deciduous, monoecious, up to 4(5) m high. Trunk well defined, tortuous, with bark fissured longitudinally, greyish-blackish bark. Intricate and spiny branches, spreading or a little erect, with a greyish-silver bark, fissured transversely, which falls off in thin, slightly rolled plates. Very numerous and thorny twigs that form very open angles with the main axis. Leaves (0.6-0.9 x 2-3.5 cm) alternate, lanceolate, thin and compact, with a finely crenate or serrated margin, with glandular teeth, glabrous, of an intense green color on the adaxial surface and a little lighter on the abaxial surface. Petiole 1.2-3 cm, glabrous; stipules deciduous. Flower buds appear early, appearing usually before the leaves. Flowers solitary or geminate, hermaphrodites. Pedicel very short, covered by the scales of the bud. Calyx with 5 sepals, oval, glabrous but a little hairy around the edges, green or reddish. Corolla with 5 petals of c. 10 mm, ovovate, with a more or less emarginate apex, glabrous, white or light pink, with purple venation. Stamens very numerous, with yellow anthers and stamens at first white, then purple. The fruit is an ovoid drupe (called tryma), acute, slightly compressed, 0.4-0.7 x 1-1.5 cm, with coriaceous external shell (mesocarp), tomentose-greenish, that when mature dries and opens, leaving a much tougher cover (endocarp) almost free, oval-acute, carenate, with numerous irregular small holes; inside, it contains an almond very bitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-12828","species","type-species","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n