Japan Flora: Deciduous sparingly branched shrub 30-60 cm. high, the branches green, the branchlets terete or often slightly flattened, with 2 shallow grooves, usually glabrous or sometimes puberulent; leaves ovate to broadly lanceolate, 2-6 cm. long, 1-3 cm. wide, acuminate, rounded to subcordate at base, vivid green and puberulent on midrib on upper side, often whitish or sometimes pale green and glabrous beneath, serrulate, subsessile, the teeth glandular while young; flowers solitary in leaf axils, the peduncles slender, 1-2 cm. long, glabrous, linear-bracteolate near the base; calyx-teeth short-deltoid; corolla 7-10 mm. long, white or pink, lobed nearly to the base, the lobes lanceolate, strongly recurved; stamens 8, the anthers red-brown, yellow at apex, linear, the filaments white-pilose; berries red, about 7 mm. in diameter; seeds impressed-punctate. June-July. Woods in mountains and hills;

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu. s. Korea.

Var. ciliare Matsum. Leaves usually smaller and the young branchlets and peduncles glandular-pilose. Honshu (w. distr.) and Shikoku.