Shrubs 1–5 m tall. Branches grayish green, robust; branchlets green to grayish green, angled, brown pubescent to subglabrous; spines to 3.5 cm, subglabrous, usually leafy. Winter buds purplish red, ovoid to oblong, subglabrous. Stipules not seen. Petiole ca. 5 mm, glabrous; leaf blade oblong to ovate-lanceolate, 3.5–9 × 1.5–3 cm, base broadly cuneate to subrounded, margin serrulate, apex acute to acuminate. Racemes axillary or on short branchlets, 3–6 cm, many-flowered; peduncle brown pubescent, soon glabrescent; bracts and bracteoles lanceolate, brown pubescent, glabrescent. Flowers ca. 1 cm in diam. Pedicel 4–8 mm, to 1 cm in fruit, brown pubescent, soon glabrescent. Hypanthium cup-shaped, outside brown pubescent. Sepals semiorbicular to broadly ovate, outside brown pubescent when young and densely so on margin. Petals white, broadly obovate, base shortly clawed, margin apically erose. Stamens in 2 or 3 whorls. Ovary glabrous. Style short. Drupe purplish brown to blackish purple, oblong to obovoid-oblong, ca. 8 mm in diam. Fl. Apr–May, fr. Aug–Sep.

Slopes, wastelands, valleys, along trails; 1000--2600 m. Guizhou, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sikkim].