Trees or shrubs to 8 m tall; bark dark grayish yellow or grayish brown. Branchlets brown, grayish green, or grayish yellow, pilose when young, glabrescent. Buds reddish brown, ovoid, pubescent when young, apex acute. Stipules lanceolate, small; petiole 2-5 mm, downy; leaf blade lanceolate or lanceolate-oblong, 8-12 × 2-3 cm, broadest below middle, abaxially glaucous, adaxially green, glabrous, downy along veins or glabrous, densely downy when young, base cuneate or broadly cuneate, margin serrulate, apex long acuminate. Male catkin ca. 2.5 cm × 5 mm, sessile, with leaflets at base; bracts obovate or long ovate, apex rounded or obtuse, pilose. Male flower: gland adaxial; stamens 2; filaments completely connate, ca. 3 × as long as bracts, pubescent proximally; anthers reddish purple. Female catkin ellipsoid-oblong, 1-1.8 cm × 5-7 mm; bracts usually brown, obovate or obovate-orbicular, pubescent, shorter than ovary. Female flower: gland adaxial; ovary broadly ovoid or subglobose, 1-1.5 mm, tomentose; style short; stigma 4-lobed. Fl. Apr, fr. May.

Along rivers; 200-500 m. Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning [Japan, Russia]