Shrubs to 6 m tall; bark yellowish green. Branchlets yellowish green, glabrous, shiny; juvenile branchlets tomentulose or glabrescent. Buds yellowish brown, tomentulose. Stipules linear, caducous or not; petiole 5-10 mm, glabrous; leaf blade oblanceolate, usually broader distally, 8-10 × 1-1.5 cm, both surfaces nearly uniformly colored, slightly pilose or appressd pubescent when young, glabrescent or subglabrous, base cuneate, margin entire or remotely shallowly dentate, apex acuminate. Flowering nearly coetaneous. Catkins 2-3 cm × ca. 5 mm; peduncle ca. 1 cm, with 2 or 3 leaflets; rachis downy; bracts brownish, spatulate or long ovate, abaxially glabrous, wrinkled, villous at base and margin, apex rounded, brown or russet. Male flower: adaxial gland elliptic; stamens 2, connate at least in part, glabrous or downy at base. Fruiting catkin bracts not caducous. Female flower: ovary conical, glabrous or pubescent, shortly stipitate; style short; stigma 2-cleft. Fl. Jun, fr. Jul.

River valleys, mountain slopes; circa 4400 m. S Xinjiang, W Xizang [Afghanistan, ?Bhutan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan].