Shrubs 1–1.5 m tall. Branchlets grayish brown; young branchlets green to greenish brown, glabrous. Winter buds ovoid, glabrous. Stipules linear, 4–6 mm, margin glandular serrate. Petiole 2–5 mm, glabrous or pilose; leaf blade ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 3–7 × 1.5–2.5 cm, abaxially pale green and glabrous or pilose along veins, adaxially dark green and glabrous, base rounded, margin acutely incised biserrate or deeply serrate, apex acuminate; secondary veins 5–8 on either side of midvein. Flowers solitary or to 3 in a fascicle, opening at same time as leaves or before; pedicel 0.5–2 cm, glabrous or pilose. Hypanthium turbinate, 2.5–3 × 2.5–3 mm, outside glabrous; sepals elliptic, slightly longer than hypanthium, margin serrulate, apex rounded; petals pink or white, obovate-elliptic; stamens ca. 32; style nearly as long as stamens, glabrous. Drupe dark red, subglobose, ca. 1 cm in diam.; endocarp smooth.

Aperient, carminative, demulcent, deobstruent, diuretic, hypotensive, laxative, lenitive and ophthalmic (kernels)

Plants For A Future
Flora of China

The kernels are taken internally in the treatment of dry constipation, oedema and insomnia following a trauma. The root is used in the treatment of constipation, children's fever, pinworms and teeth ailments.

Jing-Nuan Wu. An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. P: 525, Oxford University Press, Inc.2005.