Shrubs small, ca. 2 m tall. Branchlets red-brown, terete, slender, glabrous, prickly; prickles scattered or in pairs below leaves, erect, terete. Leaves including petiole 2.5–4 cm; stipules mostly adnate to petiole, free part ovate or lanceolate, abaxially sometimes glandular, margin stipitate glandular, apex shortly acuminate; rachis and petiole glandular-pubescent; leaflets usually 5, rarely 7, obovate or oblong, 5–11 × 3–6 mm, abaxially glandular-pubescent, adaxially glabrous, base cuneate or subrounded, margin doubly serrate, teeth glandular apically, apex truncate, rarely rounded. Flowers 2 or 3 and fasciculate, rarely solitary, ca. 2.5 cm in diam.; pedicel 1–1.4 cm, glabrous or glandular-pubescent; bracts caducous, unknown. Hypanthium oblong, usually glabrous or glandular-pubescent abaxially. Sepals 5, triangular-lanceolate, 6–8 mm, abaxially glabrous or stipitate glandular, adaxially pubescent, margin pinnately lobed; lobes stipitate glandular apically, apex caudate-acuminate. Petals 5, pink, broadly obovate, base broadly cuneate, apex rounded-obtuse. Styles free, slightly exserted, much shorter than stamens, hairy. Hip purple-brown, oblong or obovoid-oblong, 1–2 cm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Aug–Nov.

Two forms may be recognized: f. pinnatisepala, which has hypanthium and sepals usually glabrous, and f. glandulosa T. C. Ku (Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 10(1): 3. 1990), which has hypanthium and sepals densely glandular pubescent. One of us (Robertson) has seen no specimens of either form.

1400--2300 m. C and SW Sichuan (Luding Xian, Muli Zangzu Zizhixian).