Shrubs dioecious, to 2 m tall, spinescent. Branches alternate; young branches slightly virgate, grayish, longitudinally fissured, sparsely hairy; older branches grayish brown, slightly shiny, smooth, with conspicuous transversally elongated lenticels, glabrescent, terminating in a spine. Leaves alternate or fascicled on short shoots; stipules linear, caducous; petiole 7-25 mm, densely pilose; leaf blade broadly elliptic, obovate-elliptic, or ovate, 4-8 × 2.5-4.5 cm, papery or thinly so, both surfaces densely pilose, lateral veins 4-6 pairs, prominent on both surfaces, with inconspicuous reticulate veins, base broadly cuneate or subrounded, margin densely crenate-serrate, apex shortly acuminate or subrounded. Flowers unisexual, 4-merous. Pedicels 5-6(-10) mm, puberulent. Petals present, yellow-green, puberulent. Male flowers few- to 10-fascicled on short shoots, or 1-3 in leaf axils of lower part of branches. Female flowers few- to 10-fascicled on short shoots or lower parts of annual branches; styles deeply 2-cleft. Drupe purple-black, obovoid-globose, 5-6 mm in diam., with 2 stones, rarely with 1 stone, with persistent calyx tube at base; fruiting pedicel 7-14 mm, sparsely pilose. Seeds dark brown, abaxially with basally margined short furrow extending over 1/4-2/5 of length. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jun-Sep.

Mixed forests, thickets; low elevations. Jilin, Liaoning, E Shandong (Kunyu Shan, Laoshan) [N Korea].