Shrubs 1-3 m tall. Branchlets brownish red or purplish red, stout, with many nodes and short internodes, shiny. Leaves petiolate; leaf blade oblanceolate or obovate-elliptic, rarely obovate, 4-9 × 1-2.9 cm, leathery, abaxially glabrous or comose along veins, adaxially glabrous or with sparse, filamentous hairs, base cuneate, margin entire, apex acute or obtuse; veins raised abaxially; fallen leaves of previous year rust colored. Flowering coetaneous. Male catkin cylindric, 2-3 cm × 6-8 mm; peduncle short, with 2 or 3 leaflets caducous usually; bracts obovate, ca. 2 mm, abaxially long white pubescent, adaxially glabrous, apex rounded-truncate or retuse. Male flower: glands 2, ovate-oblong, adaxial gland larger than abaxial one; stamens 2; filaments distinct or partly united, 5-6 mm, base downy; anthers yellow, oblong. Female catkin 3.5-4.5 cm × ca. 8 mm, to 5.5 cm in fruit; peduncle to 1.5 cm, with sometimes caducous leaflets; bracts obovate or obovate-oblong, ca. 3 mm, longer than ovary, abaxially long white pubescent, adaxially glabrous or downy proximally. Female flower: adaxial gland ovate-oblong; ovary ovoid-conical; pilose or sparsely pubescent; style ca. as long as ovary, 2-lobed; stigma 2-cleft. Capsule broadly ovoid, ca. 3.5 mm. pilose. Fl. Jun, fr. Jul-Aug.

Similar to Salix ernestii but leaf blade not elliptic, abaxially comose, not tomentose; peduncle shorter, leaflets usually caducous; style 2-parted to -cleft.

* Mountain slopes, thickets; 2500-4300 m. Sichuan, NW Yunnan