Tree medium to large, from twenty to thirty feet in height; trunk six to ten inches in diameter; bark grayish-brown, shaggy, furrowed; branches spreading, rather slender, zigzag, little or not at all thorny; branchlets slender, zigzag, reddish, lustrous, glabrous; lenticels numerous, large, raised. Winter-buds small, short, obtuse, usually free; leaves one and one-quarter inches wide by four inches long, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, sometimes broadly so, somewhat folded, apex acute or tapering, usually rounded at the base, texture thin, margins closely and finely serrate, teeth with small, dark red glands; upper surface bright green, glabrous, lustrous; lower surface dull green, pubescence sparse along the midrib and veins or sometimes tufted in the axils; petioles slender, about three-quarters of an inch long, pubescent on the upper surface, reddish, usually with two glands at the base of the leaf-blade; stipules linear, glandular, serrate. Flowers appearing before or with the leaves, season of blooming late, about three-quarters inch across, odor sometimes disagreeable; borne on lateral spurs and buds, two or four flowers in a cluster; pedicels one half inch long, slender, glabrous; calyx-tube campanulate, glabrous, obscurely nerved, about one-fourth length of the pedicel; calyx-lobes as long as tube, ovate-oblong, obtuse at the apex, usually glabrous outside, pubescent inside at least toward the base, glandular-ciliate, erect; petals one-third inch long, white, creamy in the bud, oval or obovate, margins slightly erose, abruptly tapering into a claw, sometimes pubescent; stamens about twenty in number, equal to or shorter than the petals; filaments glabrous; anthers yellow or sometimes tinged red; pistils glabrous shorter than the stamens. Fruit ripening early; globose or oval, shortest diameter about an inch, bright currant-red, rarely yellow; bloom thin; dots few or numerous, whitish, large or small, always conspicuous; cavity shallow, narrow; suture a line; apex rounded or slightly depressed; flesh light to dark yellow, juicy, soft or melting, fibrous, sweetish, sour at the pit, aromatic; good; stone clinging to the flesh, varying from about one-half inch in length in the wild fruits to at least three-quarters inch in cultivated varieties, turgid, oval, prolonged and pointed at the apex, usually obliquely truncate at the base, more or less roughened, grooved on the dorsal edge, thick-margined and markedly grooved on the ventral one.