An erect shrub up to 6 or 7 ft high, the young shoots glabrous or slightly downy. Leaves ovate-lanceolate, oblong-lanceolate, or oval, broadly wedge-shaped or rounded at the base, with short, slender or bluntish points, finely toothed, 1 to 31⁄2 in. long, 1⁄2 to 11⁄4 in. wide, glabrous or slightly downy; veins parallel in six to nine pairs; stalk up to 1⁄3 in, long, mostly downy. Flowers produced in twos or threes in the axils of the young leaves, yellowish green; the parts in fours; stalks about 1⁄8 in. long. Fruits black, roundish, 1⁄4 in. across, two-seeded.
Native of the eastern and central United States. This buckthorn flowers with extreme freedom, the short-stalked blossoms being crowded along the young shoots and forming cylindrical clusters.