This Spreading Cotoneaster from China is a pretty, fine-textured medium-sized shrub that arches over. It bears nice white small flowers solitary or in 3's, though not really flashy, in late May to early June. The small leaves only get to be 1" long by 5/8 " wide at the most and are dark green and shiny above, and produce a good purplish-red fall color. The twigs and stems are slender. The small, red, egg-shaped pome fruit only get to about 1/3 inches long in September through November. It grows medium to fast in rate. There was one at my parent's house in a cove from the 1950's into the 1990's until it was replaced with another more upright shrub because the cotoneaster kept growing wider than the cove area. It was; however, easy to prune back heavily when it reached out too far for that spot, in northeast Illinois. (Never shear this species.) Most larger conventional nurseries offered some, usually in big pots, from the 1950's into the 1990's in the Chicago, Illinois region, but it was never common, just infrequently planted around, usually by landscape designers rather than the average homeowner. I think it is very hard to find nowadays about 2019 being sold at any Chicagoland nurseries.

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