Salix 'Chrysocoma' it is much hardier and more long-lived than the Babylon Willow ("Salix babylonica"). This particular cultivar is easily distinguished from the other Golden Weeping Willow ("S." × "sepulcralis") by its androgynous catkins. A weeping tree, not much more than 22m high. Bark greyish-brown, deeply fissured. Twigs very slender, at first thinly subadpressed pubescent, soon becoming glabrous. Golden- or greenish-yellow in their first year, later becoming olive-green. Catkins appearing with the leaves in April, terminal on very short, spreading, leafy, lateral shoots, peduncle and rhachis softly villose. Catkins male, female or most commonly androgynous. Salix 'Chrysocoma' "Salix" × "sepulcralis" <nowiki>'Chrysocoma'</nowiki>, or
Salix babylonica to northern China, "Salix matsudana" (Chinese willow), is now included in "Salix babylonica" as a synonym by many botanists, including the Russian willow expert Alexey Skvortsov. The only reported difference between the two species is "S. matsudana" has two nectaries in each female flower, whereas "S. babylonica" has only one; however, this character is variable in many willows (for example, crack willow "[Salix fragilis]" can have either one or two), so even this difference may not be taxonomically significant. "S. babylonica," especially its pendulous-branched ("weeping") form, has been introduced into many other areas, including Europe and the southeastern United States,