Shrubs or small trees , to 8 m; trunks to 30 cm; crowns narrow. Bark light gray, furrowed, warty. Branches without thorns, upright to spreading, irregular. Leaves: petiole 6-10 mm. Leaf blade ovate to occasionally ovate-elliptic, (2-)5-8 × (1-)3-4 cm, base unequal, 1 side rounded, margins mostly entire, serrate and sparingly toothed toward apex, apex blunt, acute, or short-acuminate; surfaces abaxially gray-green, harshly pubescent, adaxially dark gray-green, scabrous. Inflorescences: flowers solitary or few-flowered clusters. Drupes orange to brown or cherry red, glaucous, orbicular, 5-8 mm diam., beakless; pedicel 3-13 mm. Stones cream colored, 5-7 × 5-6 mm, reticulate. Flowers spring (Apr-May). On slopes and along streams in open woods; 0-500 m; Ont.; Ala., Ark., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Kans., Ky., La., Md., Mich., Miss., Mo., N.J., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va., W.Va.
Shrub or small, irregularly and compactly branched tree to 5 m (rarely more); lvs firm, dark green above, paler beneath, ovate or broadly ovate to deltoid, mostly 3-6 cm, entire or with a few low teeth above the middle, scabrous and impressed-veiny above, pubescent beneath and on the petiole, only slightly cordate at the oblique to nearly symmetrical base; major areoles mostly 3-5 on each side, style tardily deciduous; fr subglobose, 5-9 mm, salmon-colored, insipid, on a pedicel 3-6 mm that is to about as long as the subtending petiole; stone shallowly and obscurely pitted. Rocky hills and barrens, sometimes on dunes; Fla. to Tex., n. to N.J., Ind., Mo., and Okla., and locally to s. Mich. and s. Ont. (C. georgiana; C. occidentalis var. pumila)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.