Stems: branches glabrous or glabrescent; branchlets yellow-brown, red-brown, or brownish, usually glabrous, rarely pilose. Leaves: stipules rudimentary to foliaceous on early ones (absent on proximal ones); petiole deeply grooved adaxially, margins covering groove, 4-26 mm, pubescent or puberulent to glabrescent adaxially; largest medial blade oblong, narrowly oblong, narrowly elliptic, elliptic, or lanceolate to obovate, 53-114 × 14-35 mm, 2.7-6.3 times as long as wide, base convex or cuneate, margins flat or slightly revolute, crenate or serrulate, apex acuminate, acute, or ± caudate, abaxial surface glabrous or glabrescent, adaxial dull or slightly glossy, glabrous or glabrescent; proximal blade margins crenate or crenulate; juvenile blade reddish. Catkins: staminate 20-60 × 5.5-10 mm, flowering branchlet 3-17 mm; pistillate moderately to very densely flowered, slender to stout, 20-60 × 5-8 mm, flowering branchlet 5-31 mm; floral bract 1-2.3 mm, apex rounded or acute, abaxially hairy (mainly proximally), hairs wavy. Staminate flowers: abaxial nectary 0.2-1.1 mm, adaxial nectary oblong, square, or ovate, 0.2-0.6 mm, distinct; filaments distinct, hairy on proximal 1/2; anthers ellipsoid. Pistillate flowers: adaxial nectary obovate to square, 0.3-0.5 mm; ovary pyriform, beak gradually tapering to or slightly bulged below styles; ovules 30-36 per ovary; styles distinct 1/2 their lengths, 0.2-0.3 mm; stigmas flat, abaxially non-papillate with rounded tip, 0.1-0.2 mm. Capsules 3-6 mm. 2n = 38 (44), 57, or 88.
Sides of rivers and ponds, marshes etc. Waterside thickets in the forest, steppe, and desert-steppe regions; not rising into the mountains.
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