Plagiospermum sinense Oliver, Hooker’s Icon. Pl. 16: t. 1526. 1886.

Shrubs to 2 m tall. Branches grayish green to purplish brown, robust, glabrous; branchlets reddish brown, longitudinally angled, glabrous; spines erect to recurved, 6–10 mm, usually leafless. Winter buds purplish red, ovoid, pubescent. Petiole 5–10 mm, glabrous; leaf blade ovate-lanceolate, lanceolate, or very rarely lorate, 3–6.5 × 0.6–2 cm, abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, base subrounded to broadly cuneate, margin remotely serrate, apex acute, acuminate, or caudate; secondary veins abaxially prominent, adaxially impressed. Inflorescences in leaf axils, 1-flowered or to a 4-flowered fascicle; bracts small, membranous, lanceolate, adaxially pubescent, glabrescent. Flowers ca. 1.5 cm in diam. Pedicel 1–1.8 cm, to 2 cm in fruit, glabrous. Hypanthium campanulate, outside glabrous. Sepals triangular-ovate, short, outside glabrous, margin ciliate. Petals yellow, obovate, base shortly clawed, apex obtuse. Stamens ca. 10, in 2 whorls. Ovary glabrous. Style short. Drupe purplish red to purplish brown, subglobose to oblong, 1–1.5 cm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Apr–May, fr. May–Sep.

Mixed forests, forests of shady slopes, open places on slopes, stream sides. Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol.