Shrubs lianoid, small, 0.4–1 m tall. Branchlets brown or reddish brown, with needle-like prickles, glandular hairs, and sparse, soft hairs. Leaves simple; petiole 2.5–5.5 cm, with needle-like prickles, glandular hairs, and soft hairs; stipules free, 7–10 mm, palmatiparted nearly to base; lobes linear-lanceolate or linear, with glandular hairs, intermixed with soft hairs; blade broadly ovate, 5–11 × 3.5–8 cm, both surfaces glabrous or subglabrous, with sparse, needle-like prickles along veins, base cordate, margin undivided, rarely lobed, sharply serrate, with sparse, glandular hairs, apex acute to acuminate. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, 1-flowered or flowers in clusters of 2–4; bracts 5–8 mm, palmatipartite nearly to base; lobes linear or subulate, soft hairy and stipitate glandular. Pedicel 2–4 cm, with needle-like prickles, stipitate glandular and soft hairy. Flowers 1–1.5 cm in diam. Calyx abaxially with needle-shaped prickles, stipitate glands, and soft hairs; tube pelviform; sepals erect in fruit, triangular-lanceolate, 0.8–1.4 cm, margin entire, rarely 2-lobed, apex subulate-acuminate. Petals white, ovate, 5–8 × 4–5 mm, base with claws nearly absent, apex acute. Stamens many, arranged in several whorls; filaments broad, flat. Pistils shorter than stamens; apex of ovary and base of style thinly pubescent when young, gradually glabrescent. Aggregate fruit red, dry, semiglobose, enclosed in persistent calyx; pyrenes rugose or smooth. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Aug–Sep.

Montane thickets; ca. 3000 m. C Sichuan (Baoxing Xian).