Tree, 2-9(-15) m tall;  bark dark gray, rough, the checkered plates persisting on even the smallest branchlets, except those actively elongating. Leaves dark green and glossy-glabrous or fleetingly puberulent above, lighter green and pubescent beneath, the hairs concentrated near the base of the blade and along the midvein;  blades broadly ovate to elliptic, 8-15 x 6-9 cm, basally rounded or subcordate, apically obtuse or sometimes acute, the margins smooth or rarely irregularly finely serrate;  petiole pubescent with white or tan hairs, 2-3 cm long.  Inflorescence a cluster of racemes, often congested, terminal on main shoots, or more often terminal on lateral shoots, the axes (including pedicels) usually glandular-pubescent, the hairs 0.2-0.3(-0.7) mm long.  Flowers erect or nearly so on accrescent pedicels to 1 cm long in fruit, subtended by a scale-like bract 3.5-5 mm long, enclosing two smaller bracteoles;  calyx pale or yellow-green, all but the deltoid lobes hidden beneath the inflated corolla base; corolla creamy-white or greenish-white (4-)5.2-7.5 mm long, urceolate, developing a prominent circumferential dimple at about midway its length;  anthers 1.5-1.7 mm long;  ovary 5-locular with several ovules per locule.  Fruit ripening to a blackish-red, more or less spherical, to 1.2 cm diam.;  seeds 2-2.8 mm long.

     Distribution.  The Sierra Madre Occidental especially of Durango, where it is an abundant species in the northern parts of the state, also in Jalisco (where rare), Sinaloa, and Nayarit.  Forested ravines, slopes, and plateaus at elevations of 2050-3000 m, usually associated with Pinus cooperi, P. durangensis, P. leiophylla, Quercus sideroxyla, Q. rugosa, and Q. crassifolia.  Flowering in March and April;  fruiting June through August.