Trees to 20 m tall; trunk to 60 cm d.b.h.; bark gray, furrowed. Old branches purplish brown, not angled; branchlets yellowish brown or reddish and glabrous when young, angled. Buds ellipsoid, glabrous, viscid. Petiole reddish, 1-4 cm, stout; leaf blade ovate, elliptic-ovate, broadly ovate, or deltoid-ovate, 5-16 × 2-7.5 cm, papery, abaxially grayish white and glabrous or pubescent along veins, usually reddish along midvein, adaxially green, shiny, pilose along midvein, base broadly cuneate or rounded, margin glandular crenulate, at first ciliate, glabrescent, apex long acuminate. Short branchlets with petiole 2-9 cm; leaf blade ovate, 7.5-17 × 4-12 cm, base rounded or shallowly cordate, rarely cuneate, apex long acuminate or obtuse. Male catkin 12-20 cm; rachis glabrous; bracts russet, palmately laciniate, glabrous. Male flower: stamens 20-40. Female catkin 10-15 cm. Capsule 3- or 4-valved, subsessile or shortly stipitate. Fl. Apr, fr. Apr-May.

* Mountains, forests; 1300-3700 m. Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan.