Shrubs or small trees; crown low and broad. Branches arcuate, slender; 2- and 3-year-old branchlets usually dark purplish brown. Leaf blade narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, thin, somewhat glaucous, abaxially silvery when young, margin entire, rarely with extremely tiny denticles, apex thinly sharpened. Peduncles 3-12 cm, with 1-3 small leaflets; bracts pale, yellowish or pinkish, glabrous or very slightly pubescent, obtuse. Male flower: filaments wholly connate, densely hairy at base. Female catkin with bracts at least partly caducous. Female flower: gland adaxial, quadrangular, shorter than pedicel; style and stigma minute. Capsule narrowly conical, glabrous, shortly pedicellate.

* Mountain river valleys, especially on pebbles and gravelly alluvium; below 2500 m. Xinjiang (Tian Shan)