Trees to more than 20 m tall; trunk erect; bark gray-brown, shallowly furrowed at base; crown narrowly conical. Lateral branches thin, stratified; spreading at acute angles; 1-year-old branchlets green, angled, later grayish white. Winter buds conical, viscid. Leaves on short branchlets with petiole green or somewhat pink, thin, apically compressed, ca. as long as blade, sparingly puberulent; leaf blade rhombic-ovate, 5-7 × 2.5-3.5 cm, both surfaces pilose along veins, base cuneate, margin serrulate, ciliate, apex acuminate. Leaves on sprouts with petiole 2-3 cm; leaf blade larger, deltoid-ovate to rhombic-ovate. Female catkin 1.5-2 cm, 7-9 cm in fruit; rachis pilose; bracts brown, broadly elliptic, fringed-laciniate. Female flower: ovary broadly ovoid; stigma 2-lobed. Capsule ovoid, pilose, 2-valved, shortly stipitate. Fl. Apr, fr. May-Jun.

* Mountains, river valley banks; 1800-2500 m. E Qinghai (Minhe Xian)