Shrubs low, to 30 cm tall; trunk rooting. Branchlets erect or ascending, dull brown, russet when young, slender; juvenile branchlets downy, glabrescent. Petiole ca. 1 cm, glabrous; leaf blade ovate, obovate, oblong, or spatulate, 1-2(-3) × 0.8-1.3 (-2.2) cm, abaxially greenish, glabrous, adaxially dull green, glabrous, slightly shiny, margin incurved glandular genate; veins slightly raised, reticulate. Flowering coetaneous. Catkins lateral, basally leafy. Male catkin 2-4 cm; peduncle with leaflets usually sparsely villous; rachis pilose; bracts obovate, glabrous, apex truncate. Male flower: glands adaxial; stamens 2; filaments downy proximally; anthers reddish, ovoid. Female catkin 2-4 cm, to 5 cm in fruit; bracts as in male catkin. Female flower: gland adaxial; ovary ovoid-cylindric, glabrous, sessile or subsessile; style entire or 2-lobed; stigma 2-cleft. Fl. Jul, fr. Aug-Sep.

* Thickets; 2300-3700 m. W Sichuan, W Yunnan