Scandent, erect, arching or prostrate spiny shrub with purplish glabrate stems with recurved prickles. 3-5 foliolate leaves, serrate leaflets pilose or glabrate above velutinous beneath to 100mm long. many-flowered panicles or corymbs with tomentose bracts armed with prickles, of 15mm white or pink flowers, mucronate white-tomentose sepals to 7mm long, white petals to 12mm long, fruit black