Cotoneaster acutifolius Turcz.

A deciduous shrub of bushy habit 5 to 10 ft high, branches often pendulous; young twigs downy. Leaves pointed, ovate-lanceolate to oval, 1 to 21⁄2 in. long, half as wide; dull green, and with scattered hairs above, paler and hairy beneath especially when young; veins in five or six pairs; stalk 1⁄12 to 1⁄8 in. long. Flowers white, three or more together in corymbs; stalks and calyx woolly, lobes of calyx triangular. Fruit reddish at first, finally black, 1⁄3 in. diameter, glabrous; nutlets usually two.

Native of Mongolia, N. and W. China and the E. Himalaya. This is not one of the handsomest of cotoneasters, and is, perhaps, a poor form of C. lucidus (q.v.). There has been much confusion between the two, owing to C. lucidus also having been called C. acutifolius; but from that species the present one is distinguished by its dull green, not shining, more hairy leaves, and its woolly calyx and flower-stalks.