A deciduous shrub 6 to 9 ft high; young shoots slender, glabrous, occasionally becoming spine-tipped. Leaves oblong to narrowly obovate, mostly tapered at the base, contracted at the apex to a short, slender point, shallowly and bluntly toothed, 11⁄2 to 5 in. long, 3⁄4 to 2 in. wide, veins in five to eight pairs, yellowish, glabrous except for yellowish down beneath in the vein-axils and on the veins when young; stalk 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in. long. Flowers yellowish, 1⁄4 in. wide; petals lanceolate. Fruits black, 1⁄4 in. wide, globose-ovoid, each on a stalk 1⁄4 in. long.
Native of Central and Eastern China; long in cultivation, but sometimes confused with R. davurica, which differs in its longer leaf-stalks – often 1 in. long – whilst the leaf-blades are, on the average, shorter. Both species provide the raw material for the production of the dye known as China Green.