Trees to 20 m tall; bark gray, smooth. Branchlets dull brown or russet, stout, downy or glabrous. Buds downy, slightly viscid. Leaves of short branchlets with petiole terete, 4-7 cm, densely downy; leaf blade ovate-orbicular or ovate to long ovate-elliptic, 10-18(-22) × 5-11 cm, abaxially pale, pilose, densely downy along veins, adaxially dull green, downy along veins, base cordate or deeply so, margin glandular serrate or crenate-serrate, apex shortly acuminate, often twisted. Fruiting catkin 8-40 cm; rachis pubescent or glabrous. Capsule ovoid, 3- or 4-valved, subsessile or stipitate. Seeds brown, more than 1 mm.

Similar to Populus szechuanica var. tibetica but branchlets, petiole, leaf veins, and catkin rachis densely pubescent; leaves larger.

* Forests, mixed woods, valleys, mountains; 2200-3600 m. SE Sichuan, NW and S Yunnan