Trees, 7-15 m tall; bark gray-brown; branchlets gray, twig tips at first pubescent with short, spreading, crisped hairs, later glabrous. Petiole 2-6 cm, initially pubescent, glabrescent; leaf blade greenish abaxially, deep green and shiny adaxially, ovate or ovate-oblong, sometimes ovate-cordate, 8-18 × 4-10 cm, thickly papery, abaxially densely pubescent at first with hairs rather long (0.5-1 mm) and semiappressed, glabrescent, adaxially pubescent along veins, midvein and lateral veins prominent abaxially, lateral veins 5 or 6 pairs, second basal pair high ascending, base rounded or cordate, margin serrate, apex acute or obtuse and contracting gradually to a short acumen. Panicle 10-20 cm; rachis very densely pale grayish tomentose throughout, indumentum often completely obscuring rachis surface. Pedicels 2-3 mm in staminate flowers, 4-6 in pistillate flowers; bracts lanceolate, to 4 mm, very early caducous; bracteoles similar but much smaller, 1-1.5 mm. Sepals ovate, 4-5 mm, midvein prominent on outside, outside densely grayish tomentose, inside glabrous except for densely tomentose margin, margin thickened, apex acute. Staminate flowers: stamens unequal in length, longest ca. 1 mm; filaments glabrous; anthers ca. 0.3 mm. Pistillate flowers: ovary ovoid, longitudinally ridged, densely tomentose; styles 1-3 mm, tomentose; stigmas large, 1-2 mm, ± bifurcate, branch tips dilated, flattened, lobed, adaxially glabrous, drying blackish. Capsule ovoid, tomentose, individual valves acutely fusiform, 2-3 cm, ca. 1 cm in diam. Seeds compressed-flat, each surrounded and enclosed by a ± elliptic or oblong wing 5-10 mm, seed proper small, less than 1/2 as long as wing. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. May-Sep.

"Poliothyrsis sinensis f. subglabra" (S. S. Lai, Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 14: 228. 1994) belongs here but was not validly published under Art. 37.2 of the Vienna Code because three gatherings were indicated as types (S. S. Lai 7001, H. L. Zhang & Y. R. Zeng 27133, and S. S. Lai 062).

● Evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved mixed forests, deciduous broad-leaved forests on mountain slopes or at foot of mountains; 400- 1500 m. Anhui, Fujian, S Gansu, Guangdong, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, NE Yunnan, Zhejiang.