Trees to 22 m tall; bark gray-green, smooth. Juvenile branchlets green-brown, later grayish green. Winter buds very viscid; scales angled, ciliate, caudate. Leaves of short and long branchlets similar; petiole 2-10 cm, ± pubescent; leaf blade long elliptic, ovate-elliptic, or rhombic-elliptic, 5-10 × 2.5-6 cm, abaxially gray-white, glabrous or sparingly pubescent, adaxially green, pubescent along veins, base cuneate or broadly cuneate, margin crenate, densely ciliate, apex acuminate or long acuminate. Sprouts with leaf blade elliptic-lanceolate, narrowly oblong-elliptic, narrowly elliptic, or oblanceolate, abaxially whitish, base narrowly cuneate, margin glandular crenate. Male catkin with rachis hairy. Male flower: stamens 15-30(-47). Fruiting catkin 12-16 cm, sparsely hairy. Capsule glabrous, (2 or)3 (or 4)-valved, shortly stipitate.