Shrubs to 2 m tall. Branchlets dark brown to purplish brown, sparsely pubescent when young, glabrescent, with sparse, curved small prickles. Leaves simple; petiole 2.5–4 cm, sparsely pubescent, with minute prickles; stipules caducous, free, narrowly obovate, yellowish villous, apex palmatipartite, lobes lanceolate or linear-lanceolate; blade ovate, 6–11 × 3–6 cm, lateral veins 4 or 5 pairs, raised abaxially, slightly impressed adaxially, abaxially densely rusty yellow tomentose, with long hairs along veins, adaxially glabrous, base cuneate to rounded, margin undivided, sharply serrulate, apex caudate. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, short subracemes, to 8 cm, few flowered, sometimes flowers several in clusters or flowers solitary in leaf axils; rachis and pedicels yellowish villous; bracts narrowly obovate or broadly obovate, palmatipartite apically; lobes lanceolate or linear-lanceolate. Pedicel 1–1.5 cm. Flowers ca. 1 cm in diam. Calyx abaxially yellow-villous; sepals erect in fruit, lanceolate, 7–8 × 3–4 mm, margin entire or outer sepals laciniate, tomentose, apex acuminate. Petals suborbicular, much shorter than sepals, glabrous, base shortly clawed. Stamens slightly shorter than or nearly as long as petals; filaments broad, complanate. Pistils 10–20 or slightly more, glabrous; styles much longer than stamens. Aggregate fruit small, with few drupelets, enclosed in persistent calyx; pyrenes prominently rugose. Fl. Jul–Sep. fr. Oct–Dec.

Foothills, rocky mountains, forest clearings; 1100--1500 m. SE Yunnan.