Tree, 3-6 m. Branches long, simple, flexible, loose, recurved-drooping, yellowish-green or reddish. Buds small, acute, glabrous, appressed to the branches. Leaves up to 15 x about 1 (-1.6) cm., with short (about 1 cm. long) petioles, narrowly linear-lanceolate, often obliquely tapering at apex, mostly rather densely serrulate, pruinose-glaucescent beneath, glabrous when adult; stipules much shorter than petiole, deciduous, lanceolate-subulate, denticulate. Catkins short, less than 4 cm., slender, acute, at first erect later recurved, more or less densely flowered, overtopped by the few leaves of the short peduncle. Bracts small, soon deciduous, ovate-lanceolate, somewhat obtuse, more or less pilose at base. Staminate flowers with 2 stamens about 3 times as long as bracts. Ovary conical; style almost 0; stigmas divaricate, entire. Capsule short, sessile, ovoid-conical, glabrous. Fl. March-April.