Trees to 6 m tall. Branchlets green or greenish yellow, glabrous; shoots usually long pubescent. Buds long pubescent. Stipules ovate-lanceolate, pilose; petiole 0.8-1.7 cm, pilose; leaf blade lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 4-10 × 1-3 cm, abaxially long pubescent or subsericeous, adaxially green, pilose along midvein, base cuneate, margin serrulate, apex acute. Flowering precocious. Male catkin 2.5-4 × ca. 1.5 cm, sessile; rachis pilose; bracts obovate, long pubescent, apex black. Male flower: adaxial gland ovate or subovate; stamens 2; filaments free or connate proximally; anthers yellow, subglobose. Female catkin 2-3 cm, to 4-4.5 × ca. 1 cm in fruit; bracts black, elliptic or ovate-elliptic, ca. 1.5 × 1 mm, long pubescent. Female flower: gland adaxial; ovary lanceolate, contracted toward base, pubescent or glabrous; stipe ca. 1 mm; style long, nearly as long as ovary; stigma 2-4-lobed. Capsule pilose. Fl. May, fr. Jun.

Riverbanks; 300-600 m. Jilin, Liaoning [Korea].