Trees deciduous, 4–8(–15) m tall. Bark blackish brown; young branches green or purplish green, sparsely pubescent with white appressed trichomes; old branches grayish purple or grayish brown, glabrous, with white elliptic lenticels; winter buds mixed, globose, completely covered by two pairs of scales. Leaf blade narrowly elliptic or ovate-elliptic, 6–13 × 3–6 cm, papery, abaxially light green, pubescent with white appressed trichomes, scabrous, trichomes later often deciduous, veins (5 or)6(or 7), nearly extending to apex, base cuneate, occasionally oblique, margin entire or rarely inconspicuously undulate, apex acuminate. Capitate cymes globose, ca. 1 cm in diam., 30–45-flowered; bracts white or yellow, ovate or elliptic. Calyx tube ca. 0.8 mm, 4-lobed; lobes toothlike or rounded, inside pubescent with white or brown appressed trichomes. Petals narrowly elliptic, ca. 2.5 × 1 mm. Anthers blackish brown, ellipsoid. Style cylindrical, proximally densely pubescent with white trichomes. Compound fruit red at maturity, globose, 1.2–1.6 cm in diam.; peduncle 7–10 cm, usually without a thickened ring at base. Fl. May–Jun, fr. Oct–Nov.
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