Shrubs to 1-2 m tall. One-year-old branchlets purplish red, glabrous; juvenile branchlets tomentose. Petiole 8-10 mm, tomentose; leaf blade oblong-elliptic, rarely elliptic, 4-6 × ca. 2 cm, both surfaces villous, glabrescent, abaxially greenish, adaxially green, base cuneate or rounded, margin entire, apex acute; veins conspicuously raised abaxially; lateral veins 11-13 on each side of midvein. Flowering coetaneous. Male catkin unknown. Female catkin shortly terete, 2-2.5 cm × 7-8 mm, to 1 cm in fruit; peduncle ca. 1 cm, villous, with normal leaflets; bracts obovate-orbicular, densely villous. Female flower: glands 2, adaxial and abaxial, subovate, apex truncate, adaxial gland larger than abaxial one; ovary ovoid, downy, sessile; style ca. 1.5 mm, 2-lobed; stigma 2-cleft. Capsule ovoid, ca. 5 mm, pilose, sessile, apex attenuate. Fl. Jul, fr. Aug.

Similar to Salix kongbanica but leaf blade villous, not shortly woolly; peduncle of female catkin longer, with normal leaflets; style longer; ovary ovoid. Similar in its ovary to S. gilashanica but petiole tomentose; leaf blade oblong-elliptic, ± villous, margin entire; female flower with adaxial and abaxial glands.

* Mountain slopes; 3800-3900 m. E Xizang (Gongbo’gyamda)