Shrubs to 1.5 m tall. Branches gray; 1-year-old branchlets purplish black when dried, gray downy. Stipules semiovate, small, apex acute; petiole purplish red, 1-2 mm, downy; leaf blade elliptic or ovate-elliptic, 1.5-2 × 0.8-1.2 cm, abaxially greenish, glabrous, adaxially dull green, with sparse, filamentous hairs, base rounded or rounded-cuneate, margin serrulate, rarely subentire, apex acute; lateral veins 7 or 8 on each side of midvein. Flowering coetaneous or slightly serotinous. Male catkin unknown. Female catkin cylindric, ca. 2 × 0.9 cm; peduncle short, with 2 or 3 leaflets; bracts yellowish green, oblong, abaxially sparsely long pubescent, adaxially subglabrous. Female flower: gland 1, shortly terete; ovary conical, ca. 3 mm, downy; stipe ca. 1.2 mm, ca. as long as bracts; style short or absent; stigma 4-lobed. Capsule narrowly conical, ca. 9 mm; stipe to 1.5 mm; valves revolute. Fl. Jun, fr. Jul.

* Mountain slopes; circa 2700 m. Gansu (Shandan Xian), Ningxia (Liupan Shan), Qinghai