A large straggling or scrambling deciduous bush or shrub, rather hardy, to about 3 m tall, or rarely a semi-evergreen tree to 8 m tall, sometimes prostrate, usually spiny, sometimes unarmed, much-branched, very variable in size and habit; bark yellowish- or brownish-white, thin, smooth; wood hard, grey; branchlets horizontal, rigid, often compressed. Leaves are small. Leaf stalks 0.5-3 cm long, slender. Leaf-blades varying from oval or ovate to elliptic, obovate, subrhomboid, or triangular in outline, very variable, mostly 1-9.5 (rarely to 13) cm long, 1.5-6 cm wide, entire or 3-5 lobed when young. Flowers are large, borne in short cymules in mostly racemelike panicles 2.5-5 cm long. Flowers are yellow or bright sulphur-yellow, 4-5 cm long, curved bell-shaped.