Shrubs, deciduous, 1-2.5 m tall. Stems blackish gray or yellow-brown; young shoots purplish red, subterete, pruinose or not; spines 3-fid, sometimes simple, pale yellow or grayish, 1-3 cm. Leaves subsessile; leaf blade adaxially dark green, narrowly obovate, oblong, or elliptic, 1-2.5 cm × 6-8 mm, thickly papery or subleathery, abaxially white pruinose or not pruinose, both surfaces with raised lateral and reticulate veins, base cuneate, margin entire, apex rounded or obtuse. Flowers solitary. Pedicels 3-10 mm, sometimes pruinose. Sepals in 2 whorls; outer sepals linear-oblong, ca. 6.5 × 2.5 mm; inner sepals oblong-elliptic, 8-9 × ca. 4 mm. Petals narrowly obovate, ca. 8 × 3-6 mm, base clawed, with widely separated glands, apex entire. Stamens 4.5-5 mm; anther connective slightly prolonged, shortly apiculate. Ovules 3-6. Berry red, ovoid, ovoid-globose, or oblong-ovoid, 9-14 × 6-8 mm, pruinose; style persistent, sometimes bent. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jul-Sep.

● Mountain slopes, thickets, forest understories, river beaches, streamsides, forest margins, roadsides; 2500-4800 m. Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan.