Plants 15–80 cm, glabrous throughout. Caudex simple. Stem solitary, branched above, solid, terete, finely grooved. Basal leaves few to many, petiolate; blade triangular, 3–10 × 1–10 cm, trifoliolate or 2-ternately dissected; ultimate segments elliptic, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 20–120 × 2–12(–40) mm, subsessile, margins entire, narrowly revolute, with 3–10 parallel venations. Upper leaves usually linear and undivided. Synflorescence corymbose; umbels 2–4.5 cm across; bracts absent or 1–2, linear, 2–5 × ca. 0.1 mm; rays 5–7, 1.5–3.5 cm, unequal; bracteoles 6–10, lanceolate, about equaling flowers, bases connate; umbellules 12–18-flowered; pedicels 1.5–3 mm. Calyx teeth obsolete. Petals yellowish, square or oblong, with 3 veins, brown-yellow and conspicuous, especially costa, abaxially puberulent. Stylopodium conic, base undulate. Fruit ovate-oblong, compressed dorsally, ca. 3 × 1 mm, purplish, glabrous. vittae 1–2 in each furrow, 4 on commissure. Fl. and fr. Aug–Oct.

Both varieties have reputed medicinal value.

Two of us (Pimenov & Kljuykov, FOC 14: 129. 2005) treat this as Seseli yunnanense.

Open woodlands, sunny mountain slopes, grassy places; 1200–3200 m. NW Guangxi, SW Guizhou, SW Sichuan, Yunnan [N Thailand].