Shrubs climbing. Branchlets terete, usually glabrous; prickles paired below leaves, sometimes sparsely scattered, curved, to 6 mm, stout, flat, gradually tapering to broad base. Leaves including petiole 5–10 cm; stipules pectinate, mostly adnate to petiole, margin glandular-pubescent or not; rachis and petiole pubescent or glabrous, glandular-pubescent, shortly prickly; leaflets (3–)5–9, obovate, oblong, or ovate, 1–5 × 0.8–2.8 cm, abaxially pubescent, adaxially glabrous, base rounded or cuneate, margin simply serrate, apex acute or rounded-obtuse. Flowers numerous in corymb, 1.5–4 cm in diam.; pedicel 1.5–2.5 cm, puberulous, glabrous, or glandular-pubescent, margin sometimes pectinate; bracts at base of pedicel, small. Hypanthium subglobose, glabrous. Sepals 5, deciduous, lanceolate, abaxially glabrous, adaxially pubescent, margin entire or with 2 linear lobes at middle. Petals 5, semi-double or double, white, pinkish, or pink (in some cultivated plants), fragrant, obovate, base cuneate, apex emarginate. Styles connate in column, exserted, slightly longer than stamens, glabrous. Hip red-brown or purple-brown, subglobose, 6–8 mm in diam., glabrous, shiny. 2n = 14*, 21.

Two varieties are recognized here. Plants of this species from Taiwan are usually called var. formosana Cardot (Notul. Syst. (Paris) 3: 263. 1916), which is characterized by small leaflets, 1–3 cm × 0.8–1.5 cm, but this taxon seems to fall within the overall range of variation for var. multiflora. Two other varieties are cultivated in China, but do not occur spontaneously: var. alboplena T. T. Yü & T. C. Ku (Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 1(4): 12. 1981), which has white, double flowers, and var. carnea Thory (in Redouté, Roses 2: 67. 1821), which has pink, double flowers.

Thickets, scrub, slopes, river sides; 300--2000 m. Anhui, Fujian, S Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, S Hebei, Henan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Shandong, Taiwan, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea].