Cotoneaster simonsii

Cotoneaster simonsii, the Himalayan cotoneaster or Simons's cotoneaster, is a semi-evergreen to deciduous shrub in the rose family (Rosaceae), native to the eastern Himalaya in the Khasi Hills of north-eastern India, Bhutan, and Nepal. The species was introduced to British gardens in the 1860s and has subsequently naturalized widely in temperate regions, including parts of Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, where it can become an invasive woody weed of grasslands and forest edges. Plants reach 2-4 meters in height with an erect to spreading, rather stiff branching habit; young twigs are densely covered with fine appressed yellowish hairs that gradually fall away. The leaves are alternate, simple, broadly elliptic to ovate, 1-3 cm long, dark glossy green and almost glabrous above, paler with persistent hairs beneath, often turning red or bronze in autumn. Flowers are borne in small axillary clusters of two to five; each is about 7-10 mm across with five erect, pink-flushed white petals that scarcely open, twenty stamens, and two or three carpels. The fruit is a small bright scarlet pome 7-10 mm in diameter with two or three pyrenes.