Trees to 15 m tall; bark gray, furrowed. Juvenile branchlets brown, tomentulose or sometimes glabrescent; 2- and 3-year-old branchlets brownish. Leaves of sprouts and long shoots with petiole compressed, 2-4 cm; leaf blade ovate-orbicular or broadly ovate-orbicular, 3-7 × 3-6 cm, glabrous, abaxially greenish, pilose along veins, adaxially green, base broadly cuneate, rounded, or truncate, margin with densely incurved gland-tipped teeth, at first ciliate, apex shortly acuminate or apiculate, usually twisted. Fruiting catkin 5-10 cm; rachis glabrous or pubescent. Disc yellowish white, orbicular, with a stalk 3-4 mm. Capsule ovoid, ca. 6 × 4 mm, glabrous, 2(or 3)-valved.

A. K. Skvortsov believes that this species is synonymous with Populus afghanica.

* Along rivers. Xinjiang (Ili He valley)