Trees 2–7 m tall. Branches purple, glabrous, lustrous; branchlets of first year’s growth purplish red or greenish, pubescent, glabrescent. Winter buds purple, ovoid; scales to 10 × 8 mm, outside glabrous. Stipules lanceolate, ca. 1.5 cm, herbaceous, margin basally glandular serrate and apically entire, apex long acuminate. Petiole 2–4 mm, glabrous or apically pubescent when young; leaf blade ovate-oblong, oblong, or elliptic, 4–9(–15) × 2–4(–8) cm, both surfaces glabrous, abaxially whitish and glaucous, adaxially dark green, base subcordate, rounded, or rarely broadly cuneate, margin irregularly simple or biserrate, apex acuminate to caudate; midvein and secondary veins prominent; secondary veins 14–18 on either side of midvein. Racemes 1.7–5 cm; peduncle glabrous; bracts triangular-lanceolate, margin basally glandular serrate and apically entire, apex acuminate. Bisexual flowers 2–4 mm in diam. Pedicel 2–4 mm, glabrous but densely brown villous in fruit. Perianth segments oblong, ca. 3 mm, persistent in fruit, margin entire, apex acute. Stamens 30–35. Ovary glabrous. Style slender, longer than stamens, persistent in fruit; stigma oblique. Drupe purplish black, ovoid, ca. 8 mm in diam. apex acute. Fl. Apr, fr. Jun.

Sparse forests on slopes; 1000--1800 m. Chongqing (Wushan Xian), Gansu, Henan, W Hubei, Hunan, Ningxia, Shaanxi.