Herbs perennial. Roots robust, terete, sometimes much branched. Flowering stems erect or ascending, 10–60 cm tall, together with petioles spreading villous and pubescent or tomentose. Radical leaves 3–10 cm including petiole; stipules brown, membranous, abaxially villous or glabrescent; leaf blade pinnate with 2 or 3(or 4) pairs of leaflets; leaflets usually opposite, rarely proximal ones alternate, at intervals of 0.8–1.2 cm, sessile or subsessile, adaxially green, elliptic or obovate-elliptic, 0.5–3 × 0.5–1.5 cm, abaxially white tomentose and villous, densely villous on veins, sometimes white tomentum deciduous, adaxially appressed pilose, base cuneate or broadly so, margin obtusely or acutely incised serrate, apex obtuse, rarely acute; cauline leaves: stipules herbaceous, sometimes abaxially densely white tomentose and villous, margin 2- or 3-fid, dentate-lobed, or entire; leaf blade pinnate with 2 pairs of leaflets, or 3-foliolate; leaflets resembling those of radical leaves. Inflorescence corymbose-cymose, laxly few flowered. Flowers 1.5–2.5 cm in diam. Sepals triangular-ovate, apex acute to acuminate; epicalyx segments lanceolate, oblong-lanceolate, or oblong-elliptic, shorter than or nearly equaling sepals, green and pilose or sometimes white tomentose abaxially. Petals yellow, rarely white, obovate, 1–2 × as long as sepals, apex emarginate. Style subterminal, conic, base thickened; stigma minute, not dilated. Achenes smooth. Fl. and fr. May–Oct.

Forests, forest margins, meadows on mountain slopes; 2000--4000 m. Guizhou, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim].