Trees to 30 m tall, d.b.h. to 60 cm. Bark grayish white, smooth or exfoliating. Branchlets brown to brownish gray, grayish white pubescent or glabrescent. Winter buds globose to ovoid. Stipules brown, linear-lanceolate, 5-10 mm. Petiole slender, 2-10 mm, gray pubescent; leaf blade ovate to elliptic, (1.5-)3-6(-8) × (1-)1.5-3(-3.5) cm, papery to thickly papery, glabrous except for a few hairs on major veins, base rounded to broadly cuneate, margin crenate, apex acuminate or rarely acute; secondary veins 6-10 on each side of midvein. Male flowers: solitary or 1- or 3-clustered, 2-3 mm in diam. Tepals (5 or)6(or 7), ovate-oblong. Stamens basally white pubescent. Female flowers: solitary. Tepals 5 or 6. Ovary pubescent. Drupes irregularly obovoid-globose, 5-7 mm in diam., smooth; stalk 0-3 mm, pubescent. Fl. Apr, fr. Aug-Sep. 2n = 28*.

* Valleys, beside rivers; 800-2500 m. Gansu, Hebei, Henan, NW Hubei, Shaanxi, S Shanxi, N Sichuan.