It is an intricately branched spiny shrub or small tree with its leaves arranged alternately or clustered on short shoots.

[3] Gymnosporia dhofarensis is a spiny shrub or small tree often forming more or less impenetrable thickets and growing throughout the escarpment woodlands and extending into the drier summit plateaux areas.

[3] The species was first formally described as Maytenus dhofarensis in 1985 by Sebsebe Demissew and the description was published in Symbolae Botanicae Upsalienses.

Cut branches were traditionally popular as building material for pens and enclosures, for perimeter fences around the settlement compounds, for building partitions or to make a dense barrier across a cave mouth, or the 'door' due to the vicious thorns that were considered to cause more pain and difficulty of extraction.

If well known hardwood trees were absent, the wood of a well developed maytenus specimen would be used to make such vital weapons as a double-ended throwing stick and a knobbed club.