Shrubs 0.6–2 m tall. Branches purplish brown; branchlets brownish or brown, soft hairy when young, gradually glabrescent, with dense yellow, brownish, or purplish red straight prickles and stalked glands. Leaves imparipinnate, usually 3(–5)-foliolate; petiole 2–5 cm, petiolule of terminal leaflet 1–2 cm, lateral leaflets subsessile, petiolules and rachis with soft hairs and needle-like prickles or glandular hairs; stipules linear, 5–8 mm, with soft hairs or sparse, glandular hairs; blade of leaflets ovate, ovate-lanceolate, or narrowly obovate, 3–7 × 1.5–4(–5) cm, abaxially densely gray tomentose, adaxially glabrous or slightly hairy, base rounded, sometimes shallowly cordate on terminal leaflet, margin irregularly roughly serrate or incised-serrate, apex acute, but usually acuminate on terminal leaflet. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, corymbose, 5–9-flowered, rarely flowers solitary in leaf axils; rachis, pedicels, and abaxial surface of calyx pubescent, with glandular hairs, with needle-like prickles; bracts linear, 3–5 mm, pubescent, with stalked glands. Pedicel 1–2 cm. Flowers ca. 1 cm in diam. Sepals erect, triangular-lanceolate, 7–10 × 2.5–5 mm, margin often gray tomentose, apex long caudate. Petals white, ligulate or spatulate, shorter than sepals, base clawed. Stamens numerous, slightly shorter than or nearly as long as petals. Pistils many, nearly as long as stamens; ovary and base of style tomentose. Aggregate fruit red, ovoid-globose, ca. 1 cm in diam., tomentose; pyrenes rugose. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Aug–Sep. 2n = 14*, 24, 28*.

Forests, forest margins, thickets, grasslands, ravines, valleys, rock crevices, slopes; 400--3100 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Xinjiang [Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Russia; Europe].