Shrubs or trees to 10 m tall. Branches dull purplish red or yellowish brown, at first downy, glabrescent. Petiole 0.5-1.5 cm; leaf blade elliptic to lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 4.5-10 × 1.5-2.7 cm, abaxially pruinose, sparsely silky, adaxially dull green, base cuneate, margin entire or remotely serrulate, apex acuminate or acute. Male catkin 3-5.5 cm, subsessile; rachis sericeous; bracts yellowish brown, oblong, silky villous and ciliate, or glabrous and sparsely long ciliate. Male flower: gland adaxial, long ovate or obovate, 1/2-2/3 as long as bract; stamens 2; filaments sparsely downy, ca. 3 × as long as bracts; anthers yellow, ovoid-oblong. Female catkin cylindric, to 6-10 cm in fruit; peduncle ca. 1 cm; rachis downy; bracts lanceolate to elliptic, pilose. Female flower: adaxial gland long ovate, 1/3-1/2 as long as bracts; ovary ovoid-cylindric, pilose or glabrous, stipitate; style ca. 1/3 as long as ovary; stigma 2-cleft. Capsule ovoid-oblong, ca. 5 mm, gray pubescent, apex acute. Fl. Apr-May, fr. May-Jun.

* Mountain slopes, margins of woods, valleys; 1400-2100 m. Gansu, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan.