Herbs perennial, submersed. Stems 10--40 cm, branched, sparsely puberulent or glabrous. Petiole 2--15 mm, sheath abaxially strigose; leaf blade nearly semiorbicular in outline, 0.5--1.5 × 1.4--3.5 cm, glabrous or sparsely puberulent, 3-sect; segments 3 or 4 × sect, ultimate lobules filiform, ± rigid, remaining divaricate out of water. Flower 0.4--1.5 cm in diam. Pedicel 1.6--4 cm, glabrous. Sepals (4 or)5, elliptic, 1.5--4 mm, glabrous. Petals (4 or)5, white with yellow base, obovate, 2--7 × 1--5 mm, apex rounded. Stamens 6--25; anthers oblong, 0.4--1 mm. Aggregate fruit globose-ovoid, 2--3 × 2.5--4 mm; achenes obliquely obovoid, 1--1.5 × 0.7--1 mm, sparsely puberulent above or glabrous, with 5--7 transverse wrinkles. Persistent style 0.1--0.2 mm.

Swamps, ponds, rivers; 100--3600 m. Gansu, Heilongjiang, W Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, N Shaanxi, NW Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang [Kazakhstan, N Pakistan, Russia (Far East, Siberia)].