Plants 0.1-0.6(-1) m, (forming clones by layering). Stems (decumbent); branches gray-brown, red-brown, or yellow-brown, not to strongly glaucous (dull or slightly glossy), pubescent; branchlets gray-brown, red-brown, or yellow-brown, sparsely pubescent. Leaves: stipules rudimentary, foliaceous, or absent on early ones, foliaceous on late ones (0.2-1.8(-5) mm); petiole deeply to shallowly grooved adaxially, 1.5-8 mm, glabrous or pubescent adaxially; largest medial blade (sometimes amphistomatous), elliptic, narrowly elliptic, obovate, or broadly obovate, 17-74 × 8-30 mm, 1.2-4.5 times as long as wide, base cuneate, convex, or subcordate, margins flat, serrulate, crenulate, or sinuate, apex acute, convex, or acuminate, abaxial surface not glaucous, glabrous, adaxial slightly glossy, glabrous; proximal blade margins crenate; juvenile blade reddish or yellowish green, glabrous. Catkins flowering as leaves emerge; staminate stout, 11.5-39 × 5-14 mm, flowering branchlet 0.5-6 mm; pistillate moderately densely flowered or densely flowered, slender or stout, 16-46(-50 in fruit) × 4-15 mm, flowering branchlet 1.5-12 mm; floral bract brown, black, tawny, or bicolor, 0.4-1.1 mm, apex retuse or acute, abaxially hairy throughout or proximally, hairs curly or wavy. Staminate flowers: adaxial nectary oblong, ovate, or square, 0.2-0.34-0.4 mm; filaments distinct, glabrous; anthers purple turning yellow, 0.3-0.6 mm. Pistillate flowers: adaxial nectary square, oblong, or ovate, 0.2-0.4 mm, shorter than stipe; stipe 0.6-1.7 mm; ovary pyriform, glabrous, beak gradually tapering to or slightly bulged below styles; ovules (6-)10-14 per ovary; styles connate or distinct 1/2 their lengths, 0.3-0.7 mm; stigmas flat, abaxially non-papillate with rounded tip, or 2 plump lobes, 0.16-0.23-0.32 mm. Capsules 4-6 mm. 2n = 38.
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