Large trees, to 25 m tall; trunk to 60 cm d.b.h. Bark gray, smooth. Branchlets slender, young branchlets angular, first densely gray-white or gray-brown pubescent, glabrate after. Petiole 6-16 mm, slender, hairy; leaf blade elliptic, elliptic-oblanceolate, or elliptic-lanceolate, 5-8(-10) × 1.5-3 cm, leathery, abaxially densely gray-white appressed pubescent, adaxially glabrous or puberulent along midrib, midrib slender, adaxially impressed, lateral veins fine, 10-12 pairs, abaxially conspicuous, adaxially inconspicuous, veinlets abaxially somewhat visible or invisible, base narrowly cuneate, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate. Panicles arising from upper part of newly sprouted branchlet, 4-8 cm, very slender, branched on top of peduncle, pubescent. Flowers and pedicel 2.5-3 mm. Perianth lobes ovate, densely gray-white villous. Filaments hairy, those of 3rd series with sessile or subsessile glands at base. Ovary ovoid; style glabrous; stigma dish-shaped. Fruit ellipsoid, 1.2-1.4 cm × 6-9 mm; fruiting pedicel not enlarged; persistent perianth lobes clasping base of fruit. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Aug-Sep.

● Usually in dense forests, sometimes cultivated as an ornamental; below 1500 m. S Shaanxi, Sichuan, NE Yunnan.