Shrubs small. Branchlets purplish brown or blackish purple, gray when old, with conspicuous nodes. Buds brownish red, narrowly oblong, ca. 4 mm, shiny. Stipules suborbicular, ca. 5 mm; petiole yellowish, 1/3-1/2 as long as leaf blade; leaf blade elliptic or obovate-elliptic, rarely suborbicular, 1.5-2.7 × 1-1.5 cm, abaxially greenish, adaxially dull green glabrous, base rounded or broadly cuneate, margin entire, apex subrounded and apiculate, or acuminate; lateral veins 6-9 on each side of midvein. Flowering coetaneous or slightly serotinous. Male catkin to 2 cm; peduncle short, with 3 leaflets; bracts obovate, ca. 1/2 as long as filaments, downy or abaxially glabrous distally, apex rounded-truncate. Male flower: adaxial and abaxial glands narrowly ovate-terete, basally connate; stamens 2; filaments downy proximally. Female catkin elliptic to shortly cylindric, ca. 1 cm, pedunculate; bracts ovate or broadly ovate, 1.5-2 mm, apex rounded. Female flower: abaxial gland slightly smaller than adaxial gland, adaxial gland 2- or 3-parted, gland bases connate, forming false disc; ovary long ovoid, glabrous, shortly stipitate; style ca. 1 mm; stigma 2-cleft. Capsule ca. 3 mm. Fl. Jun, fr. Jul-Aug.

* Mountain slopes; 2500-4000 m. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan.