Trees ca. 10 m tall, andromonoecious, but often with an androdioecious sex expression. Bark gray-brown. Branchlets brownish green or greenish purple, glabrous; winter buds oblong, small, glabrous, scales 2 pairs. Leaves deciduous; petioles 3-6 cm, rufous pubescent when young; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, ovate, ovate-oblong, or suborbicular-ovate, (6-)8-12(-14) × (4-)5-8(-9) cm, papery, abaxially rufous pubescent on veins when young, glabrescent when mature, adaxially glabrous, veins 10-13 pairs, base subcordate or rounded, margin undivided or (3 or)5-lobed, serrulate or doubly serrate, apex acuminate or rarely caudate-acuminate; lobes apically obtuse or middle lobe triangular and lateral and basal lobes apically acute. Flowers greenish yellow. Inflorescence pendulous, racemose. Pedicel 1-1.5 cm, slender. Sepals 5, elliptic, ca. 4 mm, apex obtuse. Petals 5, obovate, ca. 4 mm. Stamens 8, ca. 3 mm, glabrous; anthers yellow. Disk glabrous, lobes intrastaminal. Ovary rudimentary. Fruit brownish yellow; nutlets flat, 8-10 × ca. 6 mm; wing including nutlet 2.5-2.8 cm, wings spreading horizontally or obtusely. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. Sep. 2n = 26.

This species is ornamental for its snakelike bark and the autumn coloration of its leaves.

Mixed forests. Anhui, Fujian, SE Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Ningxia, S Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Myanmar].