Trees small or large shrubs. Branches purplish brown, glabrous; juvenile branchlets pubescent. Stipules semicordate, small; petiole ca. 1.2 cm; leaf blade ovate or obovate-lanceolate, ca. 9 × 3.5 cm, abaxially greenish, appressed pubescent when young, glabrescent, adaxially green, glabrous or pilose, base cuneate or obtuse, margin loosely serrate, apex shortly acuminate or shortly caudate. Male catkin 5-9 cm × ca. 8 mm, laxly flowered; peduncle ca. 1.5 cm, with 2 or 3 downy bracts; rachis densely woolly or grayish white downy; bracts ovate-orbicular, densely woolly or abaxially thinner. Male flower: glands lobed, irregularly shaped; stamens 4-6, ca. 2 × as long as bracts; filaments downy proximally; anthers yellow. Female catkin ca. 6 cm, laxly flowered, to 11 cm in fruit; peduncle ca. 1.5 cm, with 2 or 3 bracts; rachis densely woolly or grayish white downy; bracts like those of male catkin, ca. as long as or shorter than stipes. Female flower: adaxial gland ca. 1/5 as long as stipe; ovary ovoid, glabrous, long stipitate; style 2-10-lobed, subsessile; stigma 2-parted. Capsule ovoid, 7-9 mm. Fl. and fr. Oct-Dec.

Below 2500 m. S and SW Yunnan [India, Nepal].