Trees to 15 m tall, dioecious. Bark yellowish brown, smooth. Branchlets glabrous. Leaves deciduous; petiole 2.5-8 cm, slightly pubescent near apex; leaf blade ovate or oblong, 5-11 × 2.5-6 cm, undivided or 3-lobed, papery, abaxially densely pale or white pubescent, becoming less so when mature or nearly glabrous, adaxially glabrous, 3-5-veined at base abaxially, rarely with rudimentary basal veins, lateral veins 4-6 pairs, base rounded, rarely slightly cordate or truncate, margin coarsely serrate with appressed obtuse or ± acute teeth or nearly 3-lobed, or unequally and incised-serrate, apex caudate-acuminate to obtuse. Staminate inflorescence racemose, 1-1.5 cm, glabrous, 5-8-flowered. Pedicel 8-15 mm, slender. Sepals 4, oblong, apex obtuse. Petals 4, yellowish green, linear-oblong. Stamens 4, rarely 5 or 6, glabrous. Disk glabrous, lobed, intrastaminal. Pistillate flowers unknown. Infructescence pendulous, 12-15 cm. Fruiting pedicel 2-2.5 cm, slender, glabrous. Nutlets oblong, convex, strongly rugose; wing including nutlet 3.5-5.5 × 1-1.5(-2) cm, wings spreading erectly, rarely obtusely or acutely. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Sep or Oct.

Alpine forests; 1400-3500 m. S Gansu, W Henan, W Hubei, Ningxia, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, S and SE Xizang, NW Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, Myanmar, Nepal].