Herbs perennial, 30-50 cm tall, glabrous throughout. Rhizomes slender, without stolons. Stems erect, angled, with internodes usually more than 2 cm. Rhizomal and lower cauline leaves simple; petiole 1-4 cm, not auriculate at base; leaf blade reniform or suborbicular, 0.7-2.5 × 1-3 cm, palmately veined, base cordate, margin repand-crenate, obscurely to distinctly 5- or 7-angled, apex obtuse, obscurely mucronulate. Middle and upper cauline leaves with axillary flowers, simple or rarely 1 or 2 with a lateral, leafletlike lobe, suborbicular or ovate, angled, not crenate, progressively smaller upward. Racemes bracteate throughout, very lax. Fruiting pedicels ascending, 1.5-3 cm, slender, straight. Sepals ovate, 1.5-1.8 × 0.9-1 mm, apex membranous, base not saccate. Petals white, obovate, 3.5-4.5 × 1.5-2 mm, not clawed, apex rounded. Median filament pairs ca. 2.5 mm, lateral pair ca. 2 mm; anthers oblong, ca. 0.6 mm. Ovules 20-24 per ovary. Fruit linear, 2-3.6 cm × ca. 1 mm, sessile; valves glabrous, smooth; style 1-2 mm. Seeds brown, oblong, 1.2-1.4 × 0.7-0.9 mm, wingless. Fl. and fr. Jun.

Cardamine lihengiana is the most distinctive of all Eurasian species in the genus on account of its having very lax racemes that are bracteate throughout.

* About 1900 m. Yunnan.