Stem creeping to 1.5 m, basal parts becoming thickened, distal parts erect or decumbent, laxly branched, glabrous or sparsely pubescent with purple-brown hairs. Petioles stout, 7–19 cm, glabrous or sparsely to moderately pubescent with purple-brown hairs, especially near leaf blade; leaf blade broadly round-pentagonal, rhombic-pentagonal, round-reniform or cordate-orbicular in outline, 3.4–8 × 4–12 cm, membranous or papery, abaxially glabrous or sparsely hispid on veins, base deeply cordate, margin shallowly to deeply 5–7-lobed, parted to near middle, lobes acuminate to acute, finely serrate or irregularly doubly serrate. Umbels 30–55-flowered; peduncles slender, elongate, 6–16 cm, sparsely to moderately pubescent with purple-brown hairs, especially near umbel; bracts numerous, small; pedicels (3–)6–8 mm in fruit, glabrous. Petals white. Fruit brown-spotted, subglobose, 1–1.3 × 1.6–2 mm, base shallowly cordate or truncate. Fl. and fr. Jul–Aug.

The name Hydrocotyle burmanica Kurz has been widely misapplied (e.g., in FRPS 55(1): 20. 1979) to Chinese plants that are in fact attributable to H. hookeri. True H. burmanica is a narrow endemic of S Myanmar.

Forest margins, woods, mountain slopes, valleys, grassy places, stream banks, wet places, roadsides; 900–2900 m. Guangdong, Hunan, SW Sichuan, SE Xizang, S and W Yunnan [Myanmar].