A deciduous tree up to 40 ft high, or a bush; young shoots glabrous. Leaves usually more or less obovate, sometimes roundish or even oval, broadly tapered or rounded and oblique at the base; toothed at the sides, jaggedly and more coarsely toothed (almost lobed) at the broad apex, where the midrib often elongates into a slender, awl-shaped lobe; 2 to 5 in. long, 11⁄4 to 3 in. wide; dullish dark green and glabrous above, strongly and longitudinally veined beneath, downy on the veins; stalk 1⁄8 to 1⁄3 in. long. Fruit roundish oval, nearly 1⁄2 in. long, dull orange, borne on a stalk 5⁄8 to 3⁄4 in. long.
Native of Korea, Manchuria and N. China; introduced to Kew in 1920. In a difficult genus, this is well distinguished by the shape of the leaves and the unusually large fruit. The end of the leaf (often its widest part) has a curiously jagged, bitten-off appearance, quite distinct from the leaves, so far as I have seen, of any other cultivated nettle-tree.