Trees, to 27 m tall, deciduous. Young branchlets densely pubescent to glabrous, sometimes with reddish brown lenticels. Winter buds small, blackish. Petiole 0.8--2 cm; leaf blade lanceolate, elliptic, or ovate, occasionally obovate, 5--18 X 2.6--9 cm, papery, pubescent when young drying brown, adaxially often glabrescent when mature and paler with dark veinlets, base cuneate, subtruncate, or rarely cordate, apex usually acuminate, lateral veins 5--7 per side, reticulate veinlets clearly defined, flat, and dark. Male flowers small, in 3--5-flowered cymes; calyx ± as long as corolla, hairy on both sides, lobes 4; corolla white, yellowish white, or red, 6--10 mm; stamens (14--)16--24. Female flowers solitary; calyx 3 cm or more in diam., lobes 4; corolla usually yellowish white, campanulate, (0.9--)1--1.6 cm, lobes recurved and ovate; staminodes 8(--16); ovary glabrous or pubescent. Fruiting calyx 3--4 cm in diam. Berries yellow to orange, flattened globose to ovoid but usually globose, 2--8.5 cm in diam., 8-locular, glabrescent. Seeds dark brown, 13--16 X 7.5--9 X 4--5 mm. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Sep-Oct.

Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [widely cultivated outside of China, particularly Japan, naturalized in some areas].