Erect shrub, up to 2 m tall, branches purplish red, glabrous or hairy. Petiole 1-2 (3.5) mm, hairy; lamina 2-3.4 x 1-2 cm, elliptic, obovate, or ovate to suborbicular, pilose on both surfaces, rarely subglabrous, base cuneate to rounded, entire, tip acute to obtuse, mucronate. Catkins 1-1.5 cm, sessile or shortly pedunculate, with or without 1 or 2 small leaves. Bracts brown, elliptic or obovate, 1-1.5 mm long, hairy. Male flower: stamens 2, free, filaments hairy in the lower portion; adaxial and abaxial glands sometimes divided. Female flower: ovary narrowly ovoid, c. twice as long as bracts, densely hairy, style short, stigma 4 lobed; glands 2, sometimes divided, abaxial gland rarely absent; capsule ovoid-conical, 3-5.5 mm, hairy, sessile or subsessile.

Fl. Per.: June-July

Syntypes: “Hab. Laptak Tibetiae, Strachey et Winterbottom et Dras Himalayae alt. 10,000-15,000 ped., Thomson (K).

Distribution: China (Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, Xizang), India, Nepal, Kashmir and Pakistan.

F. Zhenfu, Z. Shidong & A.K.Skvortsov (l.c. 224) recognise 3 varieties. Our specimens agree with var. sclerophylla.