Shrubs to 5 m tall. Branchlets yellowish, glabrous. Buds brownish, ovate. Stipules long ovoid, small, usually caducous; petiole 3-8 mm, glabrous; leaf blade obovate-oblong or oblanceolate, 4-6 × 1-1.5 cm, both surfaces greenish, glabrous, base cuneate, margin entire or remotely shallowly dentate distally, apex acuminate; lateral veins 8-10 each side of conspicuous, yellowish midvein. Flowering precocious or coetaneous. Catkins conical, 2-3 cm; peduncle short, with scalelike leaflets; bracts brown to reddish brown, elliptic, downy, apex rounded. Male flower: gland rectangular; stamens 2, connate throughout, tomentose proximally, ca. 2 × as long as bracts. Female flower: ovary ovoid, tomentose, subsessile; style short or absent; stigma 2-cleft. Capsule densely gray tomentose. Fl. May, fr. Jun.

Riverbanks; 1400-1500 m. N Xinjiang [Kazakhstan].