Shrubs cushion-shaped; trunk dull brown, creeping. Juvenile branchlets russet, glabrous or sparsely white downy. Buds broadly ovoid, small. Petiole 4-7 mm, pilose when young; leaf blade elliptic or ovate-elliptic, 0.8-1.3 cm × 4-6 mm, to ca. 2.7 × 1.2 cm on shoots, leathery, abaxially pale or pruinose, densely white villous when young, glabrescent, adaxially bright green, wrinkled, glabrous, base cuneate or obtuse, margin entire, apex obtuse; midvein raised abaxially. Flowering coetaneous. Catkins terminal, ellipsoid, few flowered; rachis sparsely downy; bracts yellowish green, oblong, sparsely ciliate or glabrous, apex obtuse or rounded. Male flower: glands 2, shortly cylindric; stamens 2, glabrous, ca. 2 × as long as bracts; anthers yellow, ovoid. Female flower: adaxial gland ca. 1/3 as long as bracts, abaxial gland sometimes present, small; ovary ovoid, glabrous, shortly stipitate; style short, 2-cleft; stigma oblong, 2-lobed. Capsule to 3 mm. Fl. Jun, fr. Jul-Aug.

* Mountains, on rocks; 4200-4800 m. SE Qinghai, W Sichuan, E Xizang, NW Yunnan