Shrub 1-5 m, with close gray-brown or reddish bark; petioles 8-25 mm, glabrous or stellate, usually exstipulate; lvs lance-ovate to rotund, 4-10 cm, sharply acute or short-
acuminate to broadly rounded, sharply toothed; cyme mostly 5-7-rayed, the peduncle 3-6 cm; hypanthium glabrous, sparsely glandular, or setose; stylopodium pubescent; fr blue-black, subglobose to ovoid, 5-10 mm; stone ellipsoid, plump, deeply grooved on one side; 2n=36, 54, 72. Me. to Ill., s. to Fla. and Tex., and elsewhere as an escape from cult. May-July. Variable in morphology and habitat; divisible into several vars.:
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.