It is best known for its colorful spring flowers, which are red, white, pink or multicoloured.

It is a bulky shrub with thorns and widely spreading branches, which reaches heights of growth of 0.6 to 2.0 meters.

The leaves are lanceolate to obovate, roughly toothed and glabrous even when young.

It produces apple-shaped fruit, 4 to 7 centimeters in diameter, that are a golden-yellow color containing red-brown seeds.

The fruit is occasionally used in jam, jelly and pie making as a substitute for its cousin, the true quince, Cydonia oblonga.