Shrubs erect, sometimes with trailing branches, 1.5-4.5 m tall; branchlets 4-angled, 4-grooved, often densely strigillose. Dioecious or monoecious. Leaves opposite, slightly unequal in size; stipules narrowly triangular-lanceolate, 1.3-1.8 cm; petiole 0.6-3 cm, often strigillose; leaf blade lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 5-29 ×1.5-6.4 cm, thickly papery, secondary veins 3 or 4 pairs along midvein, abaxial surface sparsely or densely pubescent along veins, adaxial surface often strongly rugose, glabrous or sparsely strigillose, but roughened, base obtuse, rounded, or subcordate, margin minutely serrulate, teeth revolute, apex long acuminate or caudate. Glomerules on spikelike flowering shoots; female glomerules congested, 4-8 mm in diam.; male spikes often in pairs, in proximal axils, shorter than female spikes; female spikes unbranched, in distal axils, nodding, 4-32 cm. Male flowers 4-merous, sessile; perianth lobes elliptic, ca. 1.2 mm, sparsely puberulent, connate at base; rudimentary ovule ellipsoid, ca. 0.5 mm. Fruiting perianth tube narrowly cuneate, oblanceolate or fusiform, compressed, 1-2.2 mm, sparsely strigillose on shoulder, base with stipe ca. 1.2 mm, 2-toothed at apex of very short neck; achenes oblong-ovoid, ca. 0.5 mm, base long stipitate.
