Shrubs to 3 m tall; bark gray, smooth. Branchlets purple or reddish green, blackish when dry, thin, tomentose, glabrescent. Buds black, ovoid, villous. Leaves opposite or obliquely opposite to alternate; stipules reniform, shorter than petiole, margin serrate; petiole 3-5 mm, at first pilose, glabrescent; leaf blade lanceolate, 4-7(-14) × 0.5-1(-1.2) cm, abaxially grayish blue, adaxially dull green, glabrous, base cuneate, margin entire or obtusely glandular dentate, apex shortly acuminate; veins raised, nearly at obtuse angle to midvein. Flowering nearly coetaneous. Male catkin terete, 2-3.5 cm, sessile, with 2 or 3 lanceolate, scalelike leaflets; bracts at first grayish green, becoming black, ovate or oblong-obovate, ca. 2 mm, downy. Male flower: stamens 2, connate throughout, ca. 2.5 × as long as bracts; anthers yellow, 4-loculed. Female flower: ovary grayish green, conical, white tomentose, sessile; style short or nearly absent; stigma 2-parted, nearly as long as style. Capsule 2-3 mm. Fl. Mar, fr. Apr-May.

* Alongside irrigation canals and ditches. Guizhou, Sichuan (Chengdu Shi)