Shrub or low tree 3-7 m high, sometimes with thorns.
Young shoots are silvery, the rest are gray. The leaves are linear or oblong-lanceolate, lanceolate-oval or ovate, with petioles, 5-8 cm long, pointed, narrowed towards the base, grayish-green above, silvery-white below with silvery scales covering both sides of the leaf.
Flowers up to 1 cm long, very fragrant, solitary, in the axils of the leaves; perianth silvery-white with yellowish veins, yellow inside.
The fruit is a drupe about 1 cm long, oval or ovoid-spherical, reddish-yellowish with a silvery-white sweetish-mealy edible pericarp.
It blooms in the middle zone in June, in the south in the second and third decades of May. The fruits ripen in August–October. Propagated by seeds, cuttings, layering, and also regenerated by shoots.
Very drought-resistant, almost does not suffer from hot winds. Unpretentious to soils. It tolerates pruning well and is therefore quite suitable for hedges, but in this case it requires regular pruning, otherwise it quickly becomes bare from below and grows into a tree. It begins to bloom and bear fruit at the age of 3-5 years.