Replaced synonym: Rubus viburnifolius Focke, Biblioth. Bot. 17(Heft 72): 75. 1910, not Franchet (1895), nor (Greene) Rydberg (1913); R. evadens Focke; R. nanopetalus Cardot.

Shrubs climbing. Branches brownish to dark brown, terete, robust, gray to yellowish gray tomentose, with sparse, somewhat curved prickles. Leaves simple; petiole 1–2.5 cm, gray to grayish yellow tomentose-villous, with sparse, minute prickles; stipules caducous, lanceolate, 5–7 mm, deeply lobed, lobes linear, villous; blade broadly ovate to suborbicular, rarely narrowly ovate, 6–11 × 5–9.5 cm, lateral veins usually 5 pairs, abaxially gray to yellowish gray tomentose and villous along veins, adaxially pilose, more densely so along veins, base truncate to subcordate, margin undulate or inconspicuously 3-lobed, irregularly abruptly pointed-serrate, apex acute or shortly pointed. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, terminal ones cymose panicles, short, 7–14 cm, compact, many flowered, axillary ones subracemes, shorter, sometimes flowers few in clusters; rachis and pedicels densely gray to grayish yellow tomentose-villous; bracts unequal in length, those in basal part of inflorescence 5–8 mm, parted nearly to base; lobes linear or lanceolate, villous, those in apical part of inflorescence smaller, linear-lanceolate, 3-divided. Pedicel 0.8–1.5 cm. Flowers 8–10 mm in diam. Calyx yellowish tomentose and villous; sepals ovate-lanceolate, 5–8 × 3–5 mm, often undivided. Petals white, spatulate or elliptic, smaller than sepals, glabrous, base clawed. Stamens many, somewhat longer than petals; filaments linear. Pistils fewer than stamens, slightly longer than or ca. as long as stamens, glabrous. Aggregate fruit red, 6–8 mm in diam., glabrous, with few drupelets; pyrenes rugose. Fl. late spring to summer, fr. summer to autumn.

Dry slopes, mixed forests; 1200--3000 m. SW Yunnan.