Shrubs. Branchlets purplish brown or yellowish brown; juvenile branchlets purplish green, tomentose. Leaves petiolate; leaf blade elliptic, oblong, or rounded, abaxially greenish, silky tomentose or downy, adaxially green, slightly pubescent or subglabrous, margin entire, apex obtuse or acute. Flowering coetaneous. Male catkin erect, (2.5-)4-4.5 cm × 6-8 cm; peduncle 1-2 cm, with 2-5 leaflets; bracts obovate-oblong, ca. 1.5 mm, curved, villous, apex greenish, obtuse. Male flower: gland adaxial, oblong-cylindric, ca. 0.6 mm, stout; stamens 2; filaments distinct, 3.5-4 mm, pilose at base. Fruiting catkin to 5.5 cm; bracts suborbicular, ca. 1 mm, villous or adaxially glabrous. Female flower: adaxial gland ovate-cylindric, stout, ca. as long as bracts; ovary ovoid, ca. 2 × as long as bracts, densely white downy, sessile; style conspicuous, 2-lobed; stigma entire or 2-cleft. Capsule ovoid, ca. 3 mm, pilose, sessile. Fl. and fr. May.

* Woods on mountain slopes; 2100-3100 m. Sichuan, E Xizang, NW Yunnan