Shrubs to 1-2 m tall. Branchlets blackish purple or yellowish red, at first pilose, glabrescent. Petiole 2-6 mm; leaf blade elliptic-oblong or oblong, rarely lanceolate, 1.5-2.5(-4) cm × 5-10 mm, abaxially whitish, glabrous, adaxially dull brown, at first downy, glabrescent, base cuneate to rounded, margin indistinctly glandular, serrate, rarely entire, apex acute or obtuse; lateral veins 6 or 7 on each side of midvein; fallen leaves of previous year rust colored. Flowering coetaneous. Male catkin oblong to shortly terete, 1.5-2 cm × 5-6 mm; peduncle 4-10 mm, with 3 or 4 leaflets; bracts obovate, 1/3-1/2 as long as filaments, apex rounded-truncate or irregularly shallowly crenate, yellow or apex brownish pubescent and ciliate. Male flower: glands 2, usually cylindric, ca. 1/2 as long as bracts, rarely divided; stamens 2; filaments nearly villous throughout; anthers yellow or in distal part of catkin red, globose. Female catkin with bracts dark russet, obovate or elliptic, nearly equal to ovary, abaxially woolly or sparsely pubescent distally, adaxially subglabrous, margin usually indistinctly crenulate, apex rounded. Female flower: adaxial gland usually 2- or 3-lobed, abaxial gland small or absent; ovary ovoid, woolly, sessile; style and stigma red, conspicuously 2-parted. Fl. Jun, fr. Jul.

* Mountain slopes, valleys, by rivers; 2900-4100 m. S Gansu, SE Qinghai, NW Sichuan, E Xizang.