Shrubs, evergreen, erect, 1-3 m tall. Spines often present, thick; young branches with dense rust-colored or brown scales. Petiole brown, 4-8 mm; leaf blade adaxially drying pale green, narrowly oblong-elliptic to narrowly lanceolate, 3-9 × 0.8-3.5 cm, papery or subleathery, abaxially with overlapping silvery scales, older leaf blades with scattered brown scales, scales obscurely lobed and deeply fimbriate-lacerate, adaxially soon glabrous, lateral veins 5-7 per side of midrib, slightly raised on both surfaces, base tapered, margin very narrowly revolute, apex acuminate or rounded. Flowers 5-7 in axils. Pedicel 3-5 mm; fruiting pedicel 4-13 mm. Flowers white, outside densely scaly; scales silvery, irregularly lobed, shallowly lacerate. Calyx tube tubular or funnelform-tubular, 5-7 mm; lobes ovate-triangular, 2.5-3 mm, inside sparsely white stellate-scaly, apex acute. Filaments very short, ca. 0.5 mm; anthers oblong, ca. 1.2 mm. Style erect, curved at apex, densely whitish stellate-hairy to subglabrous. Drupe red, broadly cylindric, 1-1.2 cm. Fl. Oct-Nov, fr. Apr.

● Eastern mountain slopes, among roadside shrubs; 600-2400(-2900) m. Gansu, Guizhou, Hubei, Shanxi, Sichuan.