Shrubs to 6 m tall; bark dull gray. Branchlets chestnut-brown, slender, glabrous; juvenile branchlets yellowish, pilose. Stipules linear, caducous; petiole 2-4 mm, at first pilose, glabrescent; leaf blade linear-oblanceolate or narrowly oblanceolate, usually broadest distally, 4-5 cm × ca. 6 mm, nearly uniformly grayish blue, tomentulose when young, glabrous when mature, base cuneate, margin entire or serrulate, apex shortly acuminate. Flowering nearly coetaneous. Male catkin 4-4.5 cm × 6-8 mm, sessile or shortly pedunculate, with leaflets at base; bracts yellowish green, oblong or oblong-obovate, ca. 1/2 as long as filaments, abaxially glabrous or sparsely villous, adaxially white downy at base, apex nearly truncate. Male flower: stamens 2; filaments connate, basally pilose; anthers yellow, globose. Female catkin 1.5-2.5 cm, elongated in fruit; peduncle with leaflets; bracts as in male catkin but wholly or partly caducous in fruit. Female flower: ovary thinly conical, glabrous; stipe ca. 1 mm; style short; stigma conspicuous. Capsule greenish or yellowish, conical, 4-5 mm. Fl. Apr-May, fr. May-Jun.
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