Trees 6-15 m tall; bark brownish gray, sulcate. Juvenile branchlets purplish green or yellowish green, slightly slender, glabrous. Buds conical, ca. 6 mm, brown pubescent. Stipules caducous; petiole purplish, becoming green or dull red, 1-2 cm, slender, notched, at first pubescent, glabrescent, apex with 2 glands; leaf blade lanceolate, 6-14 × 2.5(-4) cm, subleathery, glabrous, abaxially somewhat whitish, adaxially dull green, base cuneate, margin conspicuously serrulate, apex acuminate or acute; lateral veins 25-30 each side of raised midvein. Flowering coetaneous. Male catkin columnar, 3.5-4.5(-6.5) cm, laxly flowered; peduncle 2-10 mm, white downy, with 2-6 leaflets; rachis pubescent; bracts yellow, long elliptic, ca. 2 mm, both surfaces sparsely pubescent, margin ciliate. Male flower: adaxial gland yellow, forming false disc, abaxial gland small; stamens (3 or)4(or 5), unequal; filaments ca. 4 mm, with long hairs at base; anthers yellow, ovoid. Female catkin unknown.

Very similar to Salix wilsonii but branchlets glabrous; petiole with 2-4 glands at apex; leaf blade lanceolate, glabrous, pointed at both ends; bracts oblong, margin pilose adaxially. Similar also to S. rosthornii but young branchlets and leaves glabrous.

* Riversides or cultivated. C Sichuan