Trees or rarely shrubs, to 25 m tall, d.b.h. to 50 cm, deciduous. Bark brown or grayish brown, scabrous, longitudinally fissured. Branchlets yellowish green when young, brownish red in second year, old ones grayish brown, with distinct rounded lenticels. Stipules linear, 5-8 mm. Petiole 0.5-1.5 cm, puberulous; leaf blade ovate to ovate-elliptic, 5-10 × 3-5 cm, base broadly cuneate to ± cordate, margin serrate, apex acuminate to narrowly acuminate; 3-veined from base; secondary veins 6-10 on each side of midvein, extending to margin, each ending in a tooth. Male flowers: in proximal leaf axil of young branchlets. Tepals obovate-rounded, ca. 1.5 mm, with clustered hairs at center. Female flowers: solitary in distal leaf axil of young branchlets. Tepals linear-lanceolate, ca. 2 mm. Ovary pubescent. Drupes green or black, ± globose, ellipsoid, or ovoid-globose, 8-13 × 6-9 mm, pubescent; perianth and styles persistent; stalk 5-10 mm, pubescent.

The wood is fine and strong, the fiber is used for manufacturing ropes and staple rayon, and the leaves are used as feed for horses.

Hills, valleys, streamsides, slopes; 100-1600 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea, Vietnam].