An evergreen shrub ultimately 10 to 12 ft high, with bright green branchlets covered with outstanding down which persists two years. Leaves of a beautiful brownish red when quite young, becoming glossy green with age, ovate, rounded at the base, acutely pointed, widely and shallowly crenulate-serrulate to crenulate, 3⁄4 to 11⁄8 in. long, rather more than half as wide. Fruits usually solitary, about 1⁄4 in. wide, red.
Native of W. China and Upper Burma; introduced by Wilson about 1901 for Messrs Veitch (W.2344) and again during his Arnold Arboretum expedition (W.4458); plants from both sendings are or were in cultivation. It is a neat, cheerful-looking evergreen, allied to I. crenata, but the leaves are more leathery, not gland-dotted beneath, the branches more downy and the fruits red.
f. gentilis Loes. – Leaves more noticeably crenate. The cultivated plants incline to this form, but the difference is really too slight to merit recognition.
I. sugerokii Maxim. – This species is closely allied to I. yunnanensis, from which it differs in its almost glabrous branchlets (shortly downy when young) and in its leaves being entire in the lower part. Native of Japan.