Leaves extremely variable, elliptic, oblong-lanceolate, rhombic, or sometimes ovate on shoots, mostly 2-6 cm long, 1.5-4.5 cm wide, usually pointed or acuminate at the apex and cuneate and attenuate at the base into slender (1-2 cm) petioles, coarsely serrate on the upper two thirds or sometimes nearly to the base, undivided or sometimes with small irregular lobes, or deeply incised on shoots, thin, dark green and somewhat lustrous above, glabrous at maturity except for tufts of tomentum in the axils of the veins beneath; flowers 10-12 mm in diameter, in glabrous, many-flowered, compound corymbs; stamens about 20; anthers cream white or rarely pink; calyx lobes linear, usually entire; fruit subglobose, 5-8 mm in diameter, becoming bright red or orange red, sometimes slightly pruinose ; nutlets 4-5, usually 5. A tree sometimes 8-10 m high with a conical or depressed crown and with ascending or wide-spreading branches, pale gray bark, scaly in large, thin flakes from a cinnamon color inner layer, and slender branchlets often unarmed or sparingly armed with slender spines. In Indiana found only in the southwestern part in alluvial bottoms.