Shrubs or small trees, dioecious, 2-3 m tall, spinose or unarmed. Bark gray-brown; branchlets opposite or subopposite, rarely alternate, dark purple or purple-red, smooth, glabrous, sometimes terminating in a spine; terminal buds purple-black, narrowly ovoid, large, with few scales, scale margin ciliate. Leaves subopposite to opposite, or alternate, fascicled on short shoots; petiole red or red-purple, 1-3(-4) cm, adaxially canaliculate, ± puberulent; leaf blade ovate-cordate or ovate-orbicular, rarely suborbicular or elliptic, 1.5-6(-8) × 1.5-4.5(-6) cm, thinly papery or papery, glabrous or leaves abaxially or veins and petioles puberulent, lateral veins 4 or 5 pairs, slightly prominent on both surfaces, base cordate or rounded, margin densely sharply serrate, apex obtuse-rounded or acute. Flowers unisexual, 4-merous. Male flowers 1-20-fascicled at ends of short shoots or in leaf axils of lower part of long shoots; pedicels 8-12 mm. Female flowers few fascicled in leaf axils; pedicels ca. 2 cm; ovary globose, 3- or 4-loculed; style 3- or 4-cleft. Drupe black at maturity, globose or obovoid-globose, 6-7 mm in diam., with persistent calyx tube at base, with 3 or 4 stones; fruiting pedicel 1.3-2.3 cm, glabrous. Seeds oblong-ovoid, abaxially with margined furrow extending over 4/5 of length. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jun-Sep. 2n = 24*.

● Forests and thickets on slopes; below 2000 m. Hebei, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi.