5.Branchlets pubescent to glabrescent with minute scurfy hairs intermixed with unguicular scales.
枝具短脱落有微鳞屑与具爪鳞片混生。
6.Leaves on vegetative branchlets reduced, totally adnate to branches, gray-green, amplexicaul, vaginate, apex acute.
营养枝上叶退化,全部贴生于枝,灰绿色,抱茎,具鞘,先端锐尖。
7.Shrubs evergreen or sometimes semievergreen; branchlets and pedicels not setose. Leaf blade adaxially glabrous; corolla creamy yellow, lined and flushed rose on outside. Fl. May–Jun.
8.Juvenile branchlets glabrous; mature leaf blade 30-70 × 10-30 cm; male catkin cylindric, 2-3 cm; flowering precocious or coetaneous; shrubs more than 1 m tall.