Plants 5--40 cm tall, glabrous. Roots fibrous. Rhizome slender. Stems simple or rarely branched, erect. Leaves 4 or more, all basal; petiole 1.5--3 cm; leaf blade pinnately 2-ternate, 1.5--4 cm; leaflets cuneate-obovate to orbicular-ovate, 3--5 × 3--5(--20) mm, thinly leathery, apex 3(--5)-lobed; lobes crenate. Inflorescence racemelike, few flowered; peduncle simple or branched. Pedicel erect or recurved at anthesis, recurved in fruit. Sepals early deciduous, purplish tinged, ovate to elliptic, ca. 2 mm. Stamens 7--10(--15); filament purplish, filiform; anther yellow, 1.2--3 mm, apex mucronate. Carpels (2--)3--5(--6); stigma purple, narrowly triangular, equaling ovary. Achenes shortly stipitate or sessile; body narrowly ovoid to lanceolate-obovoid, 2--3.5 mm; persistent style broadly triangular; veins ca. 8, stout. Fl. Jun--Aug.
Damp valleys, slopes, meadows, bogs; 2400--5300 m. Gansu, Hebei, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, N Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia (Siberia), Sikkim, Vietnam; Europe, North America].
