Shrubs erect or climbing, 2–3 m tall. Branchlets grayish brown or dark reddish brown, terete, soft hairy or subglabrous, with straight to curved prickles and yellowish glands. Leaves imparipinnate, usually 5–7-foliolate; petiole 2–3 cm, petiolule of terminal leaflet 0.8–1.5 cm, lateral leaflets subsessile, petiolule and rachis with soft hairs and sparse, minute prickles, sometimes subglabrous, with yellowish glands; stipules linear or lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 0.8–1.2 cm × 1.5–3.5 mm, sparsely soft hairy; blade of leaflets ovate or ovate-elliptic to lanceolate, 4–7(–10) × 1.5–5 cm, both surfaces pilose, subglabrescent, with yellow glands, abaxially with sparse, minute prickles along midvein, base rounded, margin sharply incised doubly serrate or coarsely doubly serrate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences terminal or in leaf axils, 1- or 2-flowered; bracts linear or lanceolate, 5–9 mm, puberulous. Pedicel (1–)2–3.5 cm, with ± soft hairs and sparse, minute prickles, sometimes glandular. Flowers 2–3(–5) cm in diam. Calyx abaxially soft hairy and glandular; sepals erect before anthesis, reflexed after anthesis, triangular-lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 0.8–1.2(–1.4) cm × 4–6 mm, apex long caudate. Petals white, oblong, narrowly obovate, or suborbicular, 0.8–1.5 × 0.8–1.2 cm, abaxially shortly hairy, base clawed, apex obtuse. Stamens many, shorter than petals; filaments broad. Pistils to 2 mm, shorter than stamens; ovary glabrous, sometimes glandular; styles glabrous; torus shortly stalked. Aggregate fruit red, ovoid-globose or narrowly obovoid to oblong, 1–1.5 × 0.8–1.2 cm, glabrous, with few glands; pyrenes deeply foveolate. Fl. Mar–May, fr. Jun–Jul. 2n = 14*.

Mixed forests, grassy slopes, roadsides, landslides. Low to medium elevations. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sikkim, Thailand, Vietnam; Africa, Australia].