Branchlets generally purplish red, slender. Leaf blade narrowly oblong, elliptic, ovate, or broadly ovate, papery, abaxially pale, silky when young, glabrescent or glabrous, margin entire, apex acute to acuminate. Flowering coetaneous. Catkins cylindric, pedunculate; peduncle, with 2 or 3 leaflets deciduous in fruit or leaflets absent; bracts yellowish green to brown. Male flower: gland solitary, adaxial; stamens 2, distinct, rarely united at base; filaments downy proximally. Female flower: ovary silky, stipitate; style conspicuous, 2-cleft; stigma 2-lobed.