A deciduous tree ultimately from 20 to 30 ft high, or often a shrub, quite without thorns; stipules semicordate, toothed, about 1⁄2 in. long. Leaves ovate-lanceolate or narrowly elliptical, unlobed and finely toothed on the flowering shoots, but occasionally three-lobed and more coarsely doubly-toothed on the barren ones; dark glossy green and (at first) furnished with short appressed hairs above, downy along the midrib and chief veins to nearly glabrous beneath; 11⁄2 to 3 in. long by 5⁄8 to 11⁄2 in. wide on the flowering shoots, 1 in. larger each way on the barren ones; stalk slender, 1⁄4 to 1 in. long. Flowers creamy white, crowded in corymbs about 2 in. wide; stamens twenty; each flower 1⁄2 in. wide; flower-stalks glabrous. Fruit globose, dull red, 3⁄4 in. wide, with five nutlets.
Native of Yunnan, China; discovered by Henry; introduced in 1909. A species distinct in its unarmed branches, narrow and ordinarily unlobed leaves, and five-stoned fruits. It is hardy at Kew and bears fruit there. Forrest collected it in Yunnan several times.