Shrubs or small trees. Branches dark purplish brown; branchlets russet, downy, glabrescent. Buds brown, ovoid, pilose. Stipules semiovate, margin sparsely serrate; petiole ca. 7 mm; leaf blade lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, rarely elliptic, 2-8 × 1-2 cm, abaxially light green, glabrous, sometimes pilose when young, adaxially green, glabrous, base broadly cuneate or subrounded, margin glandular serrulate, apex long acuminate to acuminate; midvein raised abaxially. Flowering coetaneous. Male catkin 2-3 cm × ca. 6 mm, sessile, with 2 or 3 scalelike leaflets at base, or leaflets absent; rachis pilose; bracts yellowish green, ovate, adaxially pilose, apex rounded. Male flower: glands 2, brownish yellow, lobed; stamens (3-)5(or 6); filaments villous at base, ca. 2 × as long as bracts; anthers yellow, globose. Fruiting catkin to 5 cm; peduncle ca. 1 cm, with 2 or 3 leaflets; rachis pubescent; bracts ovate or elliptic, abaxially sparsely villous at base, adaxially sparsely villous, longer than stipe. Female flower: adaxial glands 2, lobed, usually forming false disc; ovary ovoid-ellipsoid, shortly stipitate; style lobed. Capsule ca. 4 mm. Fl. Mar, fr. May-Jun.

Similar to Salix wilsonii but leaf blade light green abaxially; male and female flowers with lobed glands, adaxial gland of female flower usually forming false disc; stipe short.

* Near water. Jiangsu (Nanjing Shi)