Tea-leaved willow is a 1-3m tall shrub with stoutish twigs that are widely branching, chestnut to red-purple or brown, covered with soft, fine hair at first, but soon become smooth and shiny. It has unisexual catkins (aka aments). The pistillate catkins have sessile and pubescent ovaries, styles 0.5-1.5mm long. Staminate catkins have 2 filaments, yellow anthers, and develop on branchlets with green bracts. Fruits are lanceolate, 4-7mm and finely covered with long, silky hair. Subsessile, pedicels are only 0.1-0.5mm. Its leaves are alternate, crowded, narrowly elliptic, elliptic-oblanceolate, or narrowly obovate, 3-8cm long by 1-3.5cm wide, acute at both ends or the largest obtuse at the base, smooth and glossy above, sparsely silky-hairy to waxy-smooth beneath, margins are entire or may be slightly toothed, primary lateral veins are numerous and closely spaced.
This genus is notoriously difficult to distinguish to the specific level when not in flower. Its subsessile fruit, pedicels mostly less than 1mm, smooth leaves by the time they are fully expanded, and 1-1.5mm style are distinguishing characteristics.
