A tree usually under 20 ft in the wild, or a shrub; branchlets glabrous by autumn, purplish brown; winter-buds ovoid, about 1⁄4 in. long, glabrous except for a tuft of brown hairs at the tip. Leaves with mostly ten to fifteen pairs of leaflets; rachis narrowly grooved, winged in the apical part, clad beneath with pale brown or whitish hairs, or the two intermixed. Leaflets oblong, up to 5⁄8 in. long and about half as wide, acute, deeply and sharply toothed throughout, glabrous or often somewhat hairy above, more densely so beneath, especially on the midrib. Flowers pink or even red, few in a narrow, lax cluster; inflorescence-branches brownish red, clad with brown or whitish hairs, which are rather denser on the pedicels, which, like the main branches of the inflorescence, are conspicuously lenticellate. Fruits white or pinkish, globular, 3⁄8 in. or slightly more wide.
Native of the rainier parts of the Sino-Himalayan region from Nepal to Yunnan; described by Wenzig mainly or wholly from specimens collected by Hooker and Thomson in the interior of Sikkim in 1849. Ludlow and Sherriff collected seeds of this species on at least one occasion, but the few plants in cultivation under the name S. microphylla were raised from seeds collected in Nepal in the late 1960s and early 1970s; these have not yet been seen in flower. This species gives good autumn colour in the wild.
In the western Himalaya (Kashmir, Simla region and perhaps Nepal) there is a small-leafleted species of Sorbus which may be specifically distinct from S. microphylla. It is more glabrous in all its parts; the leaflets are fewer; and the pedicels are not lenticellate. The colour of the flowers is not stated on the specimens seen. It is represented in the Wallich Herbarium by a specimen collected by Webb southeast of Simla early in the last century, to which the name Pyrus microphylla is attached in the catalogue (No. 676). This name is of no validity unless published with a description. It has been assumed that the name S. microphylla Wenzig is based on it, but he did not cite it and may not even have seen a specimen of No. 676; certainly his description is not made from the Webb specimen, but agrees with the Hooker specimens from Sikkim, two of which he did cite. These are S. rufopilosa Schneid., which therefore becomes a synonym of S. microphylla Wenzig.