Shrubs 1–2 m tall. Branches purplish brown, robust, glabrous; branchlets grayish green to grayish brown, longitudinally angled, glabrous or pubescent; spines usually erect, 6–10 mm, usually leafless. Winter buds purplish red, ovoid, glabrous. Petiole short to leaf subsessile, subglabrous; leaf blade oblong-lanceolate, narrowly oblong, oblong, ovate-oblong, ovate-lanceolate, narrowly lanceolate, or narrowly elliptic, 2–5.5 × 0.6–0.8 cm, abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margin repand to conspicuously serrulate, apex obtuse to acute. Inflorescences 1-flowered or to 3-flowered fascicle; bracts not seen. Flowers 8–10 mm in diam. Pedicel 3–15 mm, glabrous. Hypanthium turbinate, outside glabrous. Sepals triangular-ovate to semiorbicular, reflexed in fruit, outside glabrous, margin entire, apex obtuse. Petals white with purple veins, obovate, 5–6 mm, base broadly cuneate and shortly clawed, margin apically erose. Stamens 10, in 2 whorls. Ovary glabrous. Style short. Drupe reddish brown to blackish brown, globose, 0.8–1.2 cm in diam., glabrous, lustrous. Fl. May, fr. Jun–Sep.

Slopes, ravines in valleys, bases of hills; 800--2200 m. Gansu, W Henan, S Nei Mongol, Ningxia, E Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, W Sichuan.