Shrubs to 6 m tall. Branches spreading; branchlets terete, yellow-green and slightly stellate hairy or pubescent when young, later dark red-brown and glabrous; buds purple-brown, ovoid or oblong, glabrous or slightly pubescent at apex. Stipules triangular-ovate, 8–10 mm, glabrous on both surfaces or subglabrous, apex acuminate. Leaflets 13–17, opposite, sessile or nearly so, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 4–9 × 1–3 cm, glabrous on both surfaces or abaxially slightly or densely stellate hairy, lateral veins in 20–25 pairs, abaxially conspicuous, base broadly cuneate, margin doubly serrate, apex acuminate. Panicle 20–30 × 15–20 cm, many flowered; peduncle and pedicels glabrous or slightly or densely stellate hairy; bracts lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 4–5 mm, slightly pubescent, apex acuminate. Flowers 6–7 mm in diam.; pedicel 2–3 mm. Hypanthium shallowly cupular, glabrous. Sepals oblong-ovate, glabrous, apex obtuse. Petals white, suborbicular, 3–4 mm, base cuneate, apex obtuse. Stamens 20–30, longer than petals. Carpels 5, glabrous. Follicles cylindric, ca. 3 mm, glabrous, with persistent, reflexed sepals; fruiting pedicel pendulous. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Sep–Oct.

Dense forests, forest margins, slopes, stream sides, roadsides; 1600--3500 m. Gansu, Guizhou, Hubei, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan.