Trees to 10 m tall, crown ± spreading. Bark dark purplish red, smooth. Branchlets brown with age, slender, erect, glabrous when young. Winter buds reddish brown, ovoid, 2–5 mm, glabrous, apex acute. Petiole 1–2 cm, glabrous, usually with nectaries; leaf blade ovate-lanceolate, 5–13 × 1.5–4 cm, both surfaces glabrous, base cuneate to rounded, margin acutely or obtusely serrate, apex acuminate. Flowers solitary, opening before leaves, 2–3 cm in diam. Pedicel very short to flower subsessile. Hypanthium campanulate, outside glabrous. Sepals ovate to ovate-oblong, purplish red, nearly as long as hypanthium, outside glabrous, apex obtuse. Petals pink, obovate to suborbicular, 1–1.5 × 0.8–1.2 cm, apex obtuse or rarely emarginate. Stamens many, nearly as long as petals. Ovary pubescent. Style longer or ± as long as stamens. Drupe yellowish, globose, subglobose, ellipsoid, or oblong, 2.5–3.5 cm in diam., densely pubescent; mesocarp thin, dry, not splitting when ripe; endocarp globose, subglobose, ellipsoid, or oblong, not compressed on both sides, surface longitudinally and transversely furrowed and pitted, separating from mesocarp, base truncate, apex obtuse. Fl. Mar–Apr, fr. Jul–Aug.

Forests, thickets, slopes, mountain valleys, waste fields; 800--3200 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan.