Shrubs procumbent, to 3 cm tall; trunk creeping, dull brown. Juvenile branchlets ascending, russet, sparsely villous or glabrous. Buds yellowish green, ovoid, small, glabrous. Petiole 3-6 mm; leaf blade obovate-oblong, oblong, or obovate-lanceolate, 1.2-1.6 cm × 4-6 mm, to 2.5 cm × 9 mm on shoots, abaxially pale, glabrous, pilose when young, adaxially bright green, glabrous, base cuneate, margin entire, usually slightly revolute, apex acute, rarely obtuse; midvein conspicuously raised abaxially. Flowering coetaneous. Catkins terminal, ovoid, only few flowered; bracts purplish red, broadly ovate, ciliate, apex rounded. Male flower: glands 2, ca. 1/3 as long as bracts; stamens 2; filaments villous at base; anthers broadly ovoid. Female flower: adaxial gland ca. 2/3 as long as bracts; ovary ovoid-conical, glabrous, subsessile; style short, thick, 2-cleft; stigma 2-lobed. Capsule shortly stipitate. Fl. Jun, fr. Jul-Sep.

Moist rock crevices; above 4000 m. Xizang, NW Yunnan [Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sikkim]