Shrubs large. Branchlets purplish brown, pilose when young, glabrescent. Petiole 1-1.5 cm, pubescent; leaf blade lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, rarely narrowly elliptic or oblanceolate when young, (10-)15-20 × 3-4.5 cm, abaxially pilose along veins or densely tomentose, greenish or slightly white, adaxially green, when young both surfaces silky villous or abaxially tomentose, base broadly cuneate or rounded, margin entire or indistinctly glandular serrate; lateral veins more than 20 on each side of midvein. Flowering coetaneous. Male catkin slender, 7-10(-13) cm × 5-7 mm; bracts obovate-elliptic, ca. 1 mm, abaxially pubescent, adaxially glabrous. Male flower: glands adaxial and abaxial; stamens 2, distinct, basally villous, ca. as long as bracts. Fruiting catkin to 20 cm; peduncle 1.5(-2) cm, with 2 or 3(or 4) leaflets; bracts ovate-oblong, ca. as long as ovary, apex brown, nearly truncate. Female flower: gland adaxial, abaxial gland absent; ovary narrowly ovoid, glabrous, shortly stipitate; style conspicuous; stigma 2-cleft. Capsule to 5 mm. Fl. May, fr. Jun.

Mountain slopes, thickets, forests; 2600-3200 m. W Sichuan, E Xizang, NW Yunnan [Sikkim].