Shrubs to 4 m tall. Branchlets brown, brownish, or russet, glabrous. Buds ovoid or long ovoid, downy or glabrous. Young leaves brownish, thin, translucent when dried; stipules obliquely ovate, caducous, margin denticulate; petiole 1-1.5 cm, notched, tomentulose; leaf blade elliptic, 3-7 × 2-3 cm, 9-10 × 3-4 cm on shoots, abaxially pale, tomentulose only at base of midvein, rarely downy, adaxially greenish, base cuneate or broadly cuneate, margin remotely shallowly denticulate or entire, apex obuse. Flowering nearly coetaneous. Catkins 2-4 × 0.7-1 cm; peduncle densely gray tomentose, with long pubescent leaflets; bracts brown, broadly ovate, villous, apex obtuse. Male flower: gland adaxial; stamens 2, distinct, sparsely downy at base; anthers yellow. Female flower: ovary long conical, tomentose; stipe 0.7-1 mm; style 1-1.5 mm, 2- or 3-lobed. Capsule yellowish, tomentose. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jul.

Similar to Salix jenisseensis (F. Schmidt) Floderus (from Russia) but leaf blade shallowly dentate at margin; catkins short; style and stipe short; ovary tomentose. Similar also to the circumboreal species S. phylicifolia Linnaeus, but branchlets not tomentose, brownish when young; leaf blade not tomentose, margin remotely obtuse-dentate or entire, thin and translucent when dry; peduncles with leaflets; bracts uniformly colored; style and stipe longer.

* Riverbanks, margins of woods; 1800-2000 m. Xinjiang (Altay Shan)