Plants 12–25 cm high. Rootstock stout, short; roots numerous, thin-fibrous, usually bearing many tubercles. Stems 1–3, slender and decumbent, 20–40 cm. Basal leaves numerous; petioles 6–22 cm, sheaths scarious; blade broadly deltoid ovate, palmately 3-parted, 2–4 × 2.5–5 cm, abaxially deeply purplish red, reticulation conspicuous, margins narrowly rolled inward, 2–3-shallowly-crenate, teeth apiculate; central segment obovate or obovate-rounded, 1.2–2.5 × 1–2 cm, thin-leathery, base cuneate, apex obtuse; lateral segments oblique-ovate, base truncate. Inflorescence racemose branched or terminal, unbranched; bracts 3–5, subulate, unequal, rays 3, ca. 7 mm; bracteoles 5, subulate; umbellules ca. 6-flowered. Staminate flowers 5 per umbellule, pedicels ca. 2.5 mm. Fertile flower 1 per umbellule; calyx teeth linear-lanceolate, ca. 0.5 mm; styles ca. 2.5 mm. Fruit ovoid, ca. 2 × 1 mm, densely short and straight-spinulose; ribs prominent; vittae 1 under each rib, 2 on commissure. Fl. and fr. May–Jul.

Moist grassy places; 600–700 m. Chongqing (Nanchuan).