Shrubs or trees to 5 m tall. Two-year-old branchlets glabrous or slightly pilose; juvenile branchlets reddish black, tomentose. Buds blackish brown, pilose. Leaves very small at anthesis; petiole 1-1.5 cm, pilose; leaf blade elliptic, elliptic-oblong, or obovate-oblong, 6-8(-12) × 2-4 cm, to 18 cm on shoots, glandular dentate, abaxially tomentose, usually rust-colored sericeous when young, when mature glabrescent, whitish, adaxially glabrous or pubescent along veins, dark green, base rounded or broadly cuneate, margin entire or inconspicuously glandular dentate, apex obtuse or acute, contorted; fallen leaves of previous year grayish brown. Flowering precocious or coetaneous. Catkins 2(-4) cm × 6-10 mm; peduncle short to nearly absent, with 1 or 2 leaflets at base or not; bracts obovate-oblong, abaxially reddish yellow distally, downy, ciliate, adaxially glabrous or slightly pilose, apex rounded-truncate or notched. Male flower: adaxial and abaxial glands sometimes divided; stamens 2, free; filaments pilose nearly throughout; anthers yellow, rarely red. Fruiting catkin to 8 cm, with elongated peduncle. Female flower: gland adaxial; ovary reddish purple, ovoid-conical, pubescent, sessile; style long, 2-lobed; stigma 2-cleft. Capsule to 5.5 mm, subglabrous. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jun-Jul.
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