Cotoneaster affinis - Purpleberry Cotoneaster

Purpleberry Cotoneaster is a deciduous shrub, up to 5 m tall. Flowers are borne in compound corymbs 3-4 cm across, 15-30-flowered or more. Axis and flower-stalks are densely yellow woolly; bracts linear-lanceshaped, woolly. Flower-stalks are 2-3 mm, flowers about 1 cm in diameter. Sepal-cup is bell-shaped, below woolly. Sepals are broadly triangular, tip pointed. Petals are spreading, white, nearly round or ovate, 3-4 mm, above velvet-hairy near base, base shortly clawed, tip blunt. Stamens are 20, shorter than sepals. Branchlets are dark reddish brown, round. Leaf-stalks are 4-5 mm, densely yellow woolly; stipules linear or lanceshaped. Leaves are ovate or elliptic-ovate, 2.5-5 x 1.4-2 cm, midvein raised below and impressed above, below densely yellow woolly, gradually becoming hairless, base broadly wedge-shaped, tip blunt or pointed. Fruit is purplish brown to black, ovoid, 6-8 mm in diameter. Purpleberry Cotoneaster is found on slopes, mixed forests, thickets of river valleys in the Himalayas, from Kashmir to Bhutan, SE Tibet, W. China, at altitudes of 1100-2800 m. It is commonly used for making walking sticks and for controlling cattle. Flowering: May-June.