Plants deciduous trees or shrubs reaching a height of 5–12 metres, usually with thorny branches. Leaf blades shiny-green, ovate-acute, 2–7 centimetres long and 1–3 cm wide, with three conspicuous veins at the base, and a finely toothed margin. Flowers about 5 mm wide; petals 5, inconspicuous, yellowish-green. Fruits edible oval drupes 1.5–3 cm deep, each with a single pit (or stone), drupes smooth-green when immature, maturing brown to purplish-black, and eventually wrinkled, looking like a small date;  pits similar to an olive pits,[8] containing two seeds.

Ziziphus jujuba is native from northern and eastern China to South Korea but has been widely introduced elsewhere. It is species known as jujuba (or jujube).  It has been introduced to Pakistan and India but not, so far as is known to Somaliland or Somalia. The lower surfaces of its leaves differ from those of Ziziphus mauritiana in being glabrous, or at most glabrescent, rather than greyish, pale and densely tomentose. The two species also supposedly differ in the color of their mature fruits (Ziziphus jujuba brown to purplish black, Ziziphus mauritiana red) but images online do not support the distinction. 

Plants of the World Online (POWO): Ziziphus jujuba. The distribution map shows the countries where the taxon is considered native or introduced but is now growing in the wild. 

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF):  Ziziphus jujuba. Records may be of cultivated specimens.