Shrubs or small trees, to 15 m tall, andromonoecious. Bark greenish gray. Branchlets glabrous; winter buds small, scales 8, pilose along margin. Leaves deciduous; petiole 5-9 cm, glabrous; leaf blade abaxially light green, adaxially green, 9-10 × 8-12 cm, papery, abaxially usually slightly pubescent, adaxially glabrous, reticulate veins prominent abaxially, base rounded or truncate, occasionally subcordate, usually 5-lobed, rarely 7-lobed; lobes ovate or triangular-ovate, apex acuminate. Inflorescence erect, compound paniculate racemes, 6-9 × 1-1.8 cm, pilose or glabrous, numerous flowered. Pedicel 3-4 mm, slender. Sepals 5, ovate or broadly ovate, outside glabrous, villous especially along margin, apex obtuse. Petals 5, obovate, slightly shorter than sepals. Stamens 8, 3-4 mm in staminate flowers, much shorter in pistillate flowers; filaments glabrous. Disk glabrous, extrastaminal. Ovary densely villous with yellowish hairs; style nearly glabrous. Fruit greenish purple; nutlets nearly round, ca. 5 mm in diam., strongly convex and veined, densely pubescent when young; wing including nutlet 2.5-3 × ca. 1 cm, wings spreading horizontally, slightly acutely, or obtusely. Fl. May, fr. Sep.