Shrubs scandent, 3-4 m tall. Branchlets yellow-brown, pubescent or glabrous. Stipules lanceolate-subulate, minute, basally connate, persistent; petiole 3-6 mm, pubescent or sparsely so; leaf blade abaxially greenish, often turning yellow when dry, adaxially deep green, ovate-elliptic, ovate-oblong, or elliptic, 1.5-4.5(-5.5) × 0.8-2(-3) cm, papery, both surfaces glabrous or at least abaxially pubescent on veins, lateral veins 7-9 pairs, conspicuously prominent abaxially, slightly prominent adaxially, base rounded, rarely broadly cuneate, apex rounded or obtuse, rarely acute, often mucronulate. Flowers greenish or white, glabrous, usually 2-10-fascicled in pedunculate cymose racemes or rarely in shortly branched narrow cymose panicles at lower part of terminal inflorescences, ca. 7 cm; rachis sparsely or densely pubescent. Pedicel 2-5 mm. Sepals ovate-triangular or triangular, apex acute. Petals suborbicular. Drupe red at maturity, turning black, cylindric, 7-9 mm, 3-3.5 mm in diam., base with persistent disk and tube, apex acute; fruiting pedicel 3-6 mm. Fl. May-Sep, fr. Jul-Nov.

Mountain forests, forests in valleys, forest margins, thickets, slopes; 100-2100 m. Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan [India, Myanmar].