A small tree to about 50 ft high; branchlets downy when young, becoming reddish brown and glabrous. Leaves 9 to 15 in. long; leaflets five to eleven, ovate to ovate oblong, broadly wedge-shaped to slightly heart-shaped at the base, narrowed at the apex to a slender point, 2 to 5 in. long; glabrous above, downy on the midrib and in the vein-axils beneath. Flowers small, white, borne in corymbs 4 to 6 in. wide. Fruit capsules with a short, usually hooked beak.
Native of N. China and Korea; described from a specimen collected by William Daniell, a surgeon with the British forces stationed at Tientsin in 1860-2; introduced to Kew in 1907 from the Arnold Arboretum, which received seed in 1905 from Korea and in 1907 from Shantung province. The trees at Kew are now 40 to 45 ft in height and very handsome in late summer when few other trees are in bloom and later, too, when bearing their large clusters of purplish fruits.
E. hupehensis Dode – This species is closely allied to the preceding and may be its geographical expression in Shensi and Hupeh, from which province it was introduced by Wilson during his 1907-8 expedition. It is said to differ in its longer-stalked leaflets and the longer beak of the fruit, but these criteria are not reliable. Two notable specimens are: Glendoick, Perths., pl. 1923, 62 × 73⁄4 ft (1970); and Greenwich Park, London, 55 × 71⁄2 ft (1968).