Shrubs dioecious, 1.5-3 m tall. Branchlets glabrous, unarmed. Buds brown or brownish red, oblong-ovoid, 5-8 mm, apex acuminate; scales glabrous or puberulent at margin. Petiole 6-17 mm, glabrous, sometimes sparsely stalked glandular; leaf blade broadly ovate to suborbicular, sometimes narrower, 2-6 × 2-5 cm, sparsely glandular hairy, base subrounded to truncate, rarely shallowly cordate to cuneate; lobes usually 3, margin irregularly crenate-dentate, apex obtuse or acute; terminal lobe much longer than lateral ones. Racemes erect, male ones 2-5 cm, more than 10-flowered, female ones 1.5-2.5 cm, 5-10-flowered; rachis and pedicels shortly stalked glandular; bracts brownish, elliptic, 4-6 mm, glabrous or margin sparsely glandular hairy. Pedicel 2-4 mm. Calyx green, glabrous; tube cupular, 1.5-2.5 mm; lobes erect, ovate to narrowly so, subequaling tube. Petals obovate to subflabellate, minute, not equaling calyx lobes. Stamens somewhat longer than petals. Ovary glabrous. Style 2-lobed. Fruit red, obovoid-globose to globose, 0.7-0.8 cm, glabrous. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Aug-Sep.

Forests, forest margins, thickets, stony slopes; 400-2100 m. Gansu, W Hebei, SE Heilongjiang, W Henan, Jilin, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shanxi [N Korea, Russia].