Trees to 20 m tall, andromonoecious. Bark gray, gray-brown, or blackish gray, rough, scaly. Branchlets slender, those more than 1 year old brown or dark brown, glabrous; winter buds small, glabrescent. Leaves persistent; petiole 2-5 cm, slender, glabrous; leaf blade abaxially whitish glaucous, adaxially green, elliptic, elliptic-oblong, oblong-ovate, or lanceolate, 5-17 × 2.5-5 cm, leathery, smooth, adaxially glabrous, veins usually 3 at base, basal veins usually 1/3-1/2 width of blade, lateral veins 6 or 7 pairs, base cuneate, obtuse, nearly rounded, or truncate, margin entire, apex acuminate. Inflorescence terminal on leafy branchlets, corymbose, pubescent. Pedicel 1-2 cm, pubescent. Sepals 5, oblong. Petals 5, yellowish green, obovate. Stamens 8, glabrous. Disk slightly lobed, extrastaminal. Ovary pubescent; style short, glabrous; stigmas recurved. Fruiting pedicel 2-3 cm, slender, glabrous. Fruit brownish yellow when mature or purplish; nutlets strongly convex, ca. 7 × 3-5 mm; wing yellow, including nutlet 1.8-2.5 cm × ca. 8 mm, wings spreading variously. Fl. unknown, fr. Oct. 2n = 26, 52.

Mixed forests, valleys; 1000-1800 m. NW Fujian, S Gansu, Guangdong, Guizhou, SW Henan, W Hubei, Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, S Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, S Japan, Kashmir, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam].