Trees or shrubs, usually deciduous (rarely evergreen), usually unarmed (rarely thorny). Leaves simple, alternate, petiolate and penninerved, leaf margin serrate, sometimes lobed. Stipules usually caducous. Inflorescence a simple raceme, terminal on a short lateral branch (brachyblast). Bracts usually caducous. Flowers 5-merous, bisexual. Hypanthium adnate to carpels, ellipsoid or campanulate in the lower part with free upper part. Sepals persistent or caducous. Petals white, pink or red, suborbicular to obovate, clawed. Stamens 15 to 20. Stylodia 3-5, terminal, styles fused in lower part. Carpels 3-5 with open ventral sutures, adnate to the hypanthium dorsally and connate laterally. Ovules 2 per carpel. Fruit a pome, usually subglobose, green, red or yellow, sometimes lenticillate, flesh juicy to pithy without sclereids; endocarp (core) cartilaginous. Seeds 1-2 per carpel with thin, dark brown testa and thin endosperm.

A genus of c. 40 species, distributed in northern temperate regions; represented in Pakistan by 2 species.