Shrubs 2–5 m tall. Branches blackish to purplish black, glabrous; branchlets of first year’s growth reddish brown, densely brown pubescent, glabrescent. Winter buds reddish brown, oblong to ovoid; scales to 1.5 × 0.8 cm, outside pubescent. Stipules lanceolate to linear, ca. 1.5 cm, membranous, margin glandular serrate or basally glandular serrate and apically entire, apex acuminate. Petiole 2–3 mm, brown villous; leaf blade ovate-oblong to rarely elliptic, 5–10(–15) × 3–5(–8) cm, abaxially pale green, glabrous, and not glaucous, adaxially dark green and glabrous or occasionally sparsely appressed pubescent, base subrounded to broadly cuneate, margin incised and biserrate, apex acute to caudate; midvein and secondary veins yellowish, conspicuously prominent; secondary veins 10–15 on either side of midvein. Racemes 3–5 cm, dense; peduncle densely brown pubescent; bracts lanceolate to linear, membranous, margin glandular serrate or non-glandular. Bisexual flowers 2–4 mm in diam. Pedicel ca. 2 mm, densely brown pubescent, glabrescent. Perianth segments oblong, ca. 3 mm, soon caducous or base persistent in fruit, outside pubescent, inside subglabrous, margin entire, apex acute. Stamens 23–30. Ovary glabrous. Style slender, nearly as long as stamens; stigma oblique. Drupe black, ovoid, ca. 8 mm in diam., glabrous, apex acute. Fl. Apr–May, fr. Jun.

Forests in valleys, slopes, scrub; 1100--2900 m. Anhui, Gansu, Guizhou, S Henan, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Zhejiang.