Trees to 6 m tall. Branchlets russet, glabrous, pilose when young. Buds conical-ovoid. Leaves petiolate; leaf blade elliptic, oblong-lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate, or ovate, 2.5-7 (-8.5) × 1.5-2.3 cm, abaxially greenish, glabrous or pilose, rarely tomentose, golden-downy when young, adaxially green, usually russet when young, base broadly cuneate to subcordate, margin indistinctly serrulate, rarely entire, apex acuminate; veins conspicuous. Flowering coetaneous or slightly precocious. Male catkin 3-4(-6) cm × ca. 6 mm, golden, shiny, subsessile; bracts elliptic or obovate, long golden, pubescent. Male flower: gland narrowly terete, ca. as long as bracts; stamens 2; filaments connate in part or throughout, base downy; anthers reddish purple, broadly ellipsoid. Female catkin 5-7 cm × ca. 7 mm, to 8(-12) cm in fruit; bracts as in male catkin. Female flower: gland as in male flower; ovary reddish, ovoid, pubescent, sesile or shortly stipitate; style conspicuous, 2-cleft; stigma 2-parted. Capsule ca. 4 mm, pilose, rarely subglabrous or glabrous; stipe short.
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