Arborescent shrub or more often a small tree to 7 m; twigs slender, armed with stout, dark purple thorns 3-5 cm; lvs broadly ovate or deltoid, truncate or subcordate or rarely rounded at base, sharply and deeply serrate and divided into 4-5 pairs of triangular lateral-lobes, 4-6 נ3.5-5 cm, or larger on vegetative shoots, essentially glabrous from the first, thin but firm, yellow-green, crisped at the edges when mature; fls ca 2.5 cm wide, in mostly 4-7-fld glabrous cymes; sep laciniately glandular-serrate; fr bright red, 1.3-1.7 cm thick, succulent, with a very broad, nearly sessile cal; nutlets 5. Mostly in limestone regions; s. Ill. to se. Kans. and n. Ark.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
