Shrubs, open, upright, rounded, to 3(--5) m. Bark light gray, smooth. Branches ascending; twigs pubescent, covered with bristly glandular hairs. Winter buds containing inflorescences broadly ovoid, 3--4 × 3--4 mm, apex obtuse to rounded. Leaves: petiole pubescent, densely glandular-bristly. Leaf blade broadly ovate, often with straight sides and slight lobes near apex, giving them squarish appearance, 5--16 × 4--12 cm, moderately thin, base narrowly cordate to narrowly rounded, margins sharply serrate or obscurely doubly serrate, apex abruptly to long-acuminate; surfaces abaxially sparsely to moderately pubescent, velutinous to tomentose along major veins and in vein axils. Inflorescences: staminate catkins lateral along branchlets on very short shoots, usually in clusters of 1--2, 4--8 × 0.5--0.8 cm; peduncles mostly 1--5 mm. Nuts in clusters of 2--5, sometimes partially visible; bracts much enlarged, leaflike, distinct nearly to base, slightly longer than to 2 times length of nuts, apex deeply and irregularly laciniate; bract surfaces downy-pubescent, abaxially stipitate-glandular. 2n = 22, 28.
