Trees or shrubs, 3–5 m tall. Branches purplish brown to brown, glabrous, lustrous; branchlets of first year’s growth yellowish brown, densely yellowish brown tomentose-pubescent, glabrescent. Winter buds purplish brown, ovoid; scales to 1.5 × 0.8 cm, tomentose or outside subglabrous. Stipules lorate-lanceolate, membranous, sparsely pubescent, margin glandular, apex acuminate. Petiole 2–7 mm, yellowish brown villous; leaf blade oblong to oblong-oblanceolate, 3.5–12 × 1.8–6 cm, abaxially pale green to brown, densely yellowish brown villous or white pubescent, and more densely hairy on veins, adaxially brownish green and glabrous or sometimes sparsely appressed pubescent, base subcordate, margin irregularly incised and biserrate or sometimes singly serrate, apex acute; midvein and secondary veins prominent; secondary veins 15–20 on either side of midvein. Racemes 3–4 cm; peduncle sometimes brownish, densely tomentose-pubescent; bracts oblong, submembranous, subglabrous, margin entire. Bisexual flowers 2–4 mm in diam. Pedicel sometimes brown, ca. 2 mm, thickened in fruit, densely tomentose-pubescent. Hypanthium outside pubescent. Perianth segments triangular-ovate, ca. 3 mm, soon caducous, outside pubescent, inside glabrous, margin entire, apex acute. Stamens 30–40. Ovary glabrous; style slender, longer than stamens, base persistent in fruit; stigma oblong. Drupe black, ovoid, ca. 8 mm in diam., smooth, apex acute. Fl. Apr–Jun, fr. Jun.

Slopes, scrub, sunny places by rivers; 1500--3600 m. S Gansu, Guizhou, W Hubei, Shaanxi, Sichuan.