diff --git a/django/template/loader_tags.py b/django/template/loader_tags.py
index f1c08ee955..e6635258a7 100644
--- a/django/template/loader_tags.py
+++ b/django/template/loader_tags.py
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
 from collections import defaultdict
 
 from django.template.base import (
-    Library, Node, TemplateSyntaxError, TextNode, Variable, token_kwargs,
+    Library, Node, Template, TemplateSyntaxError, TextNode, Variable,
+    token_kwargs,
 )
 from django.utils import six
 from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe
@@ -100,8 +101,12 @@ class ExtendsNode(Node):
                 error_msg += " Got this from the '%s' variable." %\
                     self.parent_name.token
             raise TemplateSyntaxError(error_msg)
-        if hasattr(parent, 'render'):
-            return parent  # parent is a Template object
+        if isinstance(parent, Template):
+            # parent is a django.template.Template
+            return parent
+        if isinstance(getattr(parent, 'template', None), Template):
+            # parent is a django.template.backends.django.Template
+            return parent.template
         return context.engine.get_template(parent)
 
     def render(self, context):
diff --git a/tests/template_tests/tests.py b/tests/template_tests/tests.py
index c57c3d1479..ffc3064b41 100644
--- a/tests/template_tests/tests.py
+++ b/tests/template_tests/tests.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ from django.contrib.auth.models import Group
 from django.core import urlresolvers
 from django.template import (
     Context, RequestContext, Template, TemplateSyntaxError,
-    base as template_base, loader,
+    base as template_base, engines, loader,
 )
 from django.template.engine import Engine
 from django.template.loaders import app_directories, filesystem
@@ -414,6 +414,16 @@ class TemplateRegressionTests(SimpleTestCase):
         t1 = Template('{% debug %}')
         self.assertIn("清風", t1.render(c1))
 
+    def test_extends_generic_template(self):
+        """
+        {% extends %} accepts django.template.backends.django.Template (#24338).
+        """
+        parent = engines['django'].from_string(
+            '{% block content %}parent{% endblock %}')
+        child = engines['django'].from_string(
+            '{% extends parent %}{% block content %}child{% endblock %}')
+        self.assertEqual(child.render({'parent': parent}), 'child')
+
 
 class TemplateTagLoading(SimpleTestCase):