Shrubs to 1 m tall. Branchlets yellowish green, glabrous. Petiole purple, 6-10 mm, glabrous; leaf blade elliptic, 4-8 × 2.5-3.5 cm, abaxially pruinose, adaxially green, both surfaces glabrous, base rounded, margin indistinctly shallowly glandular serrate, apex acute to obtuse; lateral veins 11-13 on each side of midvein. Flowering coetaneous or slightly serotinous. Male catkin ca. 5-8 cm × 6-8 mm; peduncle ca. 1 cm, with leaflets or not; rachis glabrous; bracts obovate, glabrous. Male flower: adaxial gland broad, abaxial gland shortly terete; stamens 2, sparsely villous at base, ca. 2 × as long as bracts; anthers yellow. Female catkin ca. 3.5 cm × 8 mm; peduncle ca. 1 cm, glabrous, with 2 suborbicular leaflets; rachis glabrous; bracts subobovate, slightly longer than stipe, glabrous, apex truncate or retuse. Female flower: adaxial gland shortly terete, ca. 1/4 as long as stipe; ovary narrowly ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm, glabrous; stipe ca. 1.2 mm; style short, 2-cleft; stigma capitate. Capsule ovoid, 2.5-3 mm, pruinose. Fl. May, fr. Jun.

* Thickets; 2500-2600 m. C Yunnan (Jingdong Xian)