Shrubs or small trees. Branchlets stout, pruinose when young, glabrous. Buds large, glabrous. Petiole red when young, to 4 cm, stout; leaf blade elliptic, ovate, or obovate-oblong, to 20 × 11 cm, leathery, abaxially glaucous, adaxially dark green, base rounded or subcordate, rarely broadly cuneate or attenuate, margin entire when young, irregularly glandular serrulate, apex rounded, obtuse, mucronate, or acute; lateral veins ca. 15 each side of often purplish red midvein, diverging from midvein at nearly 90° , raised on both surfaces, at first villous, soon glabrescent. Catkins to 10 × 1.5 cm, glabrous throughout; peduncle ca. 7 cm, with 2-5 normal leaflets; rachis stout; bracts broadly obovate to oblong, 1.5-3 mm, apex obtuse-rounded, or truncate and irregularly dentate. Male flower: adaxial gland large, usually 2-parted, abaxial gland smaller; stamens 2, distinct or partly connate, ca. 5 mm. Fruiting catkin to 23 cm. Female flower: adaxial gland broadly ovate, truncate, depressed or 2-cleft; ovary ovoid-cylindric, ca. 5 mm; stipe to 2 mm; style ca. 1 mm, apex 2-lobed or abruptly contracted; stigma 2-cleft. Capsule ovoid-ellipsoid or ovate, 5-7 mm, subsessile or stipe to 4 mm. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jun-Jul.

* Near water, woodlands on mountain slopes; 2100-3000 m. N and W Sichuan.