Dwarf shrub, young branches reddish-brown or reddish black, sometimes covered with silky hairs, becoming glabrous, stipules membranous, caducous. Petiole 1-3 mm long. Lamina 0.5-3 x 0.3-1 cm, oblong, elliptic or lanceolate, base cuncate or rotund or cordate, margin entire, tip obtuse to acute or mucronate, greyish green glabrous on both sides or dull with appressed hairs. Catkin ± serotinous with scale leaves at the base. Male (0.5)-1-2 cm long, sessile, stamens 2, filaments partly or completely united, densely hairy towards the base; gland 1, entire or 2-3 lobed. Female catkin 1-2 cm long; bract c. 1.5 mm long, brown; gland 1; ovary sessile to subsessile, c. 2-2.5 mm long; covered by dense silky hairs, style c. 0.5 mm or less long; branched with entire or bilobed stigmas at the tip. Capsule sessile to subsessile, 4-5 mm long, brown, hairy.