Cornus bretschneideri L. Henry

Shrubs or small trees, 1–6 m tall. Bark purplish red. Young branches reddish, terete, sparsely pubescent with grayish white trichomes; old branches light yellow, glabrous, with or without whitish elliptic lenticels. Leaves opposite; leaf blade ovate, elliptic-ovate, or oblong, 5–8.5 × 2.5–6 cm, papery, abaxially grayish white or glaucous, densely papillose and pubescent with appressed white trichomes or occasionally with dense yellowish brown curly trichomes, lateral veins 5 or 6(or 7), with soft, long white trichomes in axils, smaller veins inconspicuous, base broadly cuneate to rounded, apex cuspidate to acuminate. Corymbose cymes 4.5–6 cm wide, pubescent with grayish white trichomes, deciduous short trichomes, or rarely with dense curly trichomes. Pedicels 1.5–6 mm. Flowers white, 5.5–7 mm in diam. Calyx teeth sharply triangular, 0.2–0.3 mm, equal to or slightly longer than disk. Petals ligulate to ovate, 3–4 × 1.4–1.8 mm. Stamens longer than petals; anthers yellowish white, ovate-oblong. Style cylindrical, 2.3–2.6 mm; stigma capitate, broader than style. Fruit bluish black or black, subglobose, 4–5 mm in diam.; stones ovoid-globose, ca. 3.5 mm in diam., inconspicuously ribbed. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Aug–Sep.

Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan.

Forests, thickets, slopes; 600–2300 m.