Trees to 20 m tall; bark dull gray, furrowed; crown broadly ovate. Juvenile branchlets grayish brown or brownish green, pubescent or glabrous. Buds ovoid, 2-5 mm. Stipules oblique-ovate or ovate-lanceolate, margin serrate, apex long caudate; petiole 6-13 mm, subglabrous; leaf blade lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate, or oblong-lanceolate, 6-9(-13) × 1-1.8 cm, abaxially glaucous, pubescent along midvein or silky downy and glabrescent, adaxially green, pubescent or subglabrous, base cuneate to cuneate-rounded, margin glandular serrate, apex acuminate. Male catkin subsessile or long pedunculate; peduncle with (2 or)3-5 leaflets; bracts yellowish green, ovate-oblong, both surfaces pilose or subglabrous adaxially, apex acute. Male flower: glands adaxial and abaxial; stamens 2, long downy proximally, sometimes connate at base; anthers red. Female catkin ellipsoid to shortly cylindric, 1-2 cm; peduncle with 3-5 leaflets; bracts greenish, ovate-oblong or ovate, both surfaces pilose or abaxially downy or subglabrous, apex acute or obtuse. Female flower: glands adaxial and abaxial (sometimes absent); ovary ovoid, downy, sessile; style slightly elongate to nearly absent; stigma red, 2-4-lobed. Fl. Mar, fr. Jun.

A. K. Skvortsov believes that this species is synonymous with Salix pierotii.

Along rivers, damp mountain slopes, or cultivated; near sea level to 700 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Shandong [Japan, Korea, Russia (Far East)]