Shrubs, rarely small trees, dioecious, to 5 m tall, spinose, divaricate. Branchlets opposite or subopposite, shiny, brown or yellow-brown, rarely purple-red, smooth, glabrous, terminating in a spine; buds small, glabrous. Leaves opposite or subopposite, or fascicled on short shoots; stipules linear, caducous; petioles 0.7-2 cm, adaxially canaliculate, glabrous or sparsely puberulent; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, obovate to obovate-elliptic, rarely elliptic or oblong, 3-8 × 2-5 cm, papery, abaxially distinctly bearded at vein axils, adaxially glabrous or sparsely hairy on midvein, lateral veins 3-5 pairs, prominent abaxially, impressed adaxially, base cuneate, margin crenate to serrate, apex shortly cuspidate to acuminate. Flowers unisexual, 4-merous. Pedicels 4-5 mm, glabrous. Petals present. Male flowers 10-20-fascicled on short shoots. Female flowers few-to 10-fascicled at apices of short shoots or in leaf axils of lower part of long shoots; rudimentary stamens minute; style 2-cleft to half. Drupe black at maturity, globose, 4-6 mm in diam., with persistent calyx tube at base and minute apical mucro, with 2 or 3 stones; fruiting pedicel 6-8(-10) mm. Seeds dark brownish, broadly obovoid, abaxially with margined furrow extending over 2/3-3/4 of length. Fl. Mar-May, fr. May-Oct.
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A shrub. It can grow 5 m tall. The branches end in a spine. The leaves are opposite or in groups on short shoots. They are pale green underneath. The leaves are oblong and 3-8 cm long by 2-5 cm wide. Male and female flowers are separate. The fruit is round and black when ripe. They are 4-6 mm across.
Dry hillsides, gravelly valley bottoms, thickets or forest margins in valleys, along the sides of roads and on slopes; at elevations from 1,700-2,600 metres.
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It is a temperate plant. In China it grows on the edges of forests and roadsides between 1,700-2,600 m above sea level. In Sichuan and Yunnan.
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